German engineering giant Siemens and AES have formed a joint venture to establish a new company Fluence, a energy storage company.
The new company will have its global headquarters in Washington DC, US. It will combine AES Advancion and Siemens Siestorage energy storage platforms with expanded services.
Both the companies will have joint control of the new company, with each owning 50% stake. The new company is expected to offer wide range of options to meet challenges of a rapidly transforming energy landscape.
Fluence will operate as an independent company, with offices located in Erlangen, Germany and select cities worldwide.
The transaction is expected to be completed in the fourth quarter of calendar year 2017, subject to regulatory and other approvals.
It will combine the capabilities and expertise from Siemens’ battery-based energy storage solutions group under the Energy Management division with AES’ subsidiary, AES Energy Storage.
Till date, both the companies have deployed or awarded 48 projects with a capacity of around 468MW of battery-based energy storage units across 13 countries in the world. These projects also include the world's largest lithium-ion battery-based energy storage project near San Diego, California.
Siemens' Energy Management Division CEO Ralf Christian said: "As the energy storage market expands, customers face the challenge of finding a trusted technology partner with an appropriate portfolio and a profound knowledge of the power sector.
“Fluence will fill this major gap in the market. With the global reach of an experienced international sales force as well as Siemens' leading technology platform Siestorage at its disposal, Fluence will be perfectly equipped to serve this very interesting market.”
AES president and CEO Andrés Gluski said "Over the past ten years, AES has become a global leader in utility-scale, battery-based energy storage. Today AES' Advancion platform is present in seven countries with more than 200 MW of energy storage deployed, including the largest installed system of its kind in the world.
"Partnering with Siemens to form Fluence will offer both large and small customers the full gamut of proven, state-of-the-art energy storage solutions in over 160 countries. This will accelerate the integration of renewables into the energy network of tomorrow."