Siemens AG and The AES Corporation today announced their agreement to form a new global energy storage technology and services company under the name Fluence. The equal joint venture will bring together AES’ ten years of industry-defining experience deploying energy storage in seven countries with over a century of Siemens’ energy technology leadership and its global sales presence in more than 160 countries, a release from Siemens said.
Fluence will offer customers a wider variety of options to meet the challenges of a rapidly transforming energy landscape. The company will empower customers around the world to better navigate the fragmented but rapidly growing energy storage sector and meet their pressing needs for scalable, flexible, and cost-competitive energy storage solutions.
Siemens and AES will have joint control of the company with each holding a 50 percent stake. Fluence’s global headquarters will be located in the Washington, DC area with additional offices located in Erlangen, Germany and select cities worldwide. The transaction is expected to close in the fourth quarter of calendar year 2017, subject to regulatory and other approvals, the release noted.
Quoting a study by IHS Markit, the release observed that grid-connected energy storage sector is expected to expand from a total installed capacity of three gigawatts (GW) at the end of 2016 to 28 GW by 2022, which is equivalent to the power used by 18.6 million households. By incorporating energy storage across the electric power network, utilities and communities around the world will optimize their infrastructure investments, increase network flexibility and resiliency, and accelerate cost-effective integration of renewable electricity generation, the release added.
