Cash injection will help the company, formerly RFC Power, scale up and deploy novel technology for meeting energy demand and solving grid constraints in the UK and further afield.
RFC Power, an energy storage company created at Imperial and based at the I-HUB on its White City campus, has completed a £10 million Series A investment round. Rebranded as Certain Energy, the company will use the money to commercialise its manganese flow battery technology, and prepare it for deployment stabilising electricity grids and providing power during periods of low renewable energy production.
This investment marks an important step towards bringing manganese flow batteries to the grid at scale and demonstrating the impact that university innovation can have on the global energy transition. Professor Anthony Kucernak Co-founder, RFC Power
The company was created in 2017 to exploit research from the labs of Professor Anthony Kucernak in the Department of Chemistry and Professor Nigel Brandon in the Department of Earth Science and Engineering. This resulted in a technology that combines the benefits of a flow battery with the best elements of fuel cell technology, to efficiently convert electrical energy to chemical energy and back again.
"The transition to a decarbonised energy system requires affordable, long-duration energy storage that can capture renewable electricity when it is abundant and deliver it when it is needed," said Professor Kucernak. "It is immensely gratifying to see technology developed in our laboratories progress from fundamental research to commercial deployment."
Rather than involving rare minerals, these flow batteries are built on manganese, the twelfth most abundant element in the Earth's crust. And unlike conventional batteries, the system can extend discharge duration by simply increasing the size of its electrolyte tanks, enabling storage from hours to days.
"Long-duration storage is the missing piece of the clean energy system, and manganese flow is the technology that should win," said Dr Tim von Werne, Chief Executive of Certain Energy.
"This investment marks an important step towards bringing manganese flow batteries to the grid at scale and demonstrating the impact that university innovation can have on the global energy transition," Professor Kucernak added.
The funding round includes a contribution from Ceres Power, an Imperial spinout in 2001 from Professor Brandon's research with colleagues in the Department of Materials, this time into fuel cells. Ceres is now listed on the London Stock Exchange, with a £900 million market capitalisation.
"Electrochemical technologies such as flow batteries have a key role to play in the transition to low carbon energy systems," said Professor Brandon, who is now Dean of the Faculty of Engineering. "It is great to see more ideas that originated in Imperial's labs being scaled up to make a positive difference in the world."
Government support
The funding round was led by the government-owned British Business Bank, with energy company Centrica and Temasek Trust's Catalytic Capital for Climate and Health investing alongside Ceres.
By investing in Certain Energy, the British Business Bank is backing British innovation and helping develop the long-duration energy storage we need. Michael Shanks Department for Energy Security and Net Zero
"Homegrown clean energy is our route to more affordable bills and energy security, and storing it for when we need it most is critical," said Michael Shanks, a minister in the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero. "By investing £3.5 million in Certain Energy, the British Business Bank is backing British innovation and helping develop the long-duration energy storage we need to store clean power for days, not hours, and deliver a more secure energy system."
"With the British Business Bank behind us, we have the capital and the mandate to build a global champion here, turning world-class UK science into the industry the energy transition needs," Dr von Werne added.
Certain Energy now plans to scale up its technology for volume production, including the development of a grid-connected MWh-class system in India, expansion of its research facility in the UK, and the creation of the supply chain needed to deliver replicable projects.
"Certain Energy has a combination that is rare in this sector: a low-cost, abundant chemistry and a credible, capital-efficient route to manufacturing," said Stuart Paynter, Chief Financial Officer of Ceres. "We're glad to back a fellow UK innovator with global ambitions."
