Charging ahead: Zenobe battery solutions driving sustainability

When the electric bus and grid-scale battery player Zenobē , opens in new windowwas formed in 2017, the realisation was dawning that capturing energy for use at a later time was the key to overcoming the intermittency of renewables as fossil-fuel generation was retired.

Now, according to chief executive Donald Weir, it’s accepted that “you can forget about net zero (in 2050) without storage”.

The Clean Energy Council said as much in last year’s Clean Energy Australia report: “Large-scale batteries will be essential … to provide the firming capability the energy grid will need as more renewables are added.”

As the energy transition unfolded, Zenobē evolved its buses-and-batteries strategy into a fast-growing electric vehicle and network infrastructure operation in the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Europe and North America.

Mr Weir, chief executive since last June, said there were alternatives to large-scale energy storage, but Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS) was the leading technology.

“I’m not a technology absolutist, but pumped storage hydro has a 6-7 year construction period, whereas we can build a 300+ MW BESS in about two years once the permitting is in place,” he said.

“Batteries also react much faster than pumped hydro, and they’re in the virtuous phase of year-on-year capital expenditure reduction.

“Then there’s hydrogen, which probably comes to mind for most people, but it still has to prove its way out of pilot programs.”

To say infrastructure-heavy Zenobē is in a growth phase would be an understatement.

Since 2017, it has raised 2.1bn pounds sterling (about A$4.2bn) in debt and equity funding, with 735MW of batteries and about 2000 electric buses and trucks either live or under contract, across around 100 depots.

Zenobe, according to the company, works with almost all of the major bus companies in the UK, powers over 25% of the UK e-bus market, ranks as number one owner and operator of e-buses in Australia and NZ, and is rapidly expanding into light commercial vehicles and trucks.

Its ambitions in Australia extend to the grid-scale batteries business, as it assembles a local team by hiring power experts and equipping them with its technical expertise.

Mr Weir is now in his sixth CEO role at companies of varying size, which have all had a global growth challenge.

He said there were two highly attractive features of the Australian market – the high penetration of renewables, and a sophisticated financial system capable of supporting Zenobē’s shareholders’ equity with local debt.

The company is yet to build a big battery in Australia but its intentions are clear, with the e-vehicle business already delivering several landmark fleet-electrification projects.

In south Sydney, Zenobē will establish Australia’s first shared-use offsite truck-charging hub, including a contract to provide Woolworths with 60 electric home delivery trucks, operated and managed from the site.

The last-mile delivery project was facilitated by an $8.5m grant from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA), as part of the Driving the Nation Fund.

The ARENA funding extends to the nation’s first electric-vehicle-as-a-service project, with Zenobē using its electrification expertise to ensure cost and energy efficiency, consistency of power supply, installation and maintenance of charging infrastructure, and replacement of batteries.

The contract is expected to accelerate Woolworths’ expansion of its home-delivery fleet, helping the retailer meet its commitment to electrify the entire  fleet by 2030.

Zenobē is also building the nation’s largest electrified bus depot for NSW Transit Systems at Leichhardt in Sydney’s inner-west.

The project, which will manage a fleet of 40 new e-buses and received funding from ARENA as well as the Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC), is a full electrification offer from finance to design, and construction and operation of the infrastructure.[JRD1]

In the meantime, Zenobē has been building an Australian Network Infrastructure team led by Simon Brooker (recruited from the CEFC) and transferring expertise developed in the UK market to create grid-scale storage solutions. This complements its established EV fleet team, led by Gareth Ridge.

“We’re not the only company in the network infrastructure battery space, but our positioning is very clear,” Mr Weir said.

_{Zenobē Chief Executive Donald Weir}

“We focus on the transmission level and grid-forming technology, which means we not only do the basic job of storing energy when it’s in excess and discharging energy when it’s in deficit, but we also offer a wide range of system services to stabilise the grid.

“And we have the credentials of having installed 435MW of battery power, which includes energising what we believe to be one of the most sophisticated BESS in Europe, and perhaps the world.

“It’s an exciting time but we are down to earth; indeed, many of the BESS development companies you could name (in our industry) could also become partners – we don’t have to do everything on our own.”

Partnerships or not, the sums of money involved are significant.

Through to 2030, Zenobē is looking to scale-up by a factor of 10, deploying about 6bn pounds sterling in capital of which around A$ 1.4 bn is earmarked for Australia.

Globally, the company is targeting growth in the network infrastructure business from 435MW in 2024 to 4.5GW in 2030, with the operating e-bus fleet up from 1400 to 14,000 and annual capital expenditure surging from 366m pounds sterling to around 1bn pounds sterling.

“We are at the intersection of the decarbonisation of transport and the decarbonisation of the electricity system, which means (the size and growth of the market) has so far not been a problem,” Mr Weir said.

“So, while we target substantial or leading market shares, we don’t have to take every opportunity to reach our targets.

“The supply chain is a challenge especially in electric vehicles – the typical lead time for ordering new electric buses is often 18 months and can be as long as 24 months depending on specification.”

Zenobē, according to its CEO, is in active discussions with a variety of lenders to fund its growth ambitions.

On the equity side, the company was initially bootstrapped by the three founders and a “families and friends” round before attracting external capital in 2019 from Japan’s largest power generation company, JERA, which remains an investor.

A year later, Infracapital, a division of London-listed investment manager M&G, came in, followed by private equity giant KKR, which stumped up about 600m pounds sterling of an 870m pound sterling capital raising in September last year.

Infracapital and KKR are now the largest shareholders in the company.

With Australia and NZ destined to become Zenobē’s next largest market after the UK, the missing ingredients are local finance partners.

“The two largest shareholders are longer term investors – they’re not funds which have to exit in the short term,” Mr Weir said.

“We’ll have to raise more equity to reach our targets and in the shorter term our focus is on seeking competitive project finance.”

The information contained in this article is based upon sources believed to be reliable but which have not been independently verified. Opinions or ideas expressed may not necessarily be those of National Australia Bank Limited (“NAB”) nor may they necessarily reflect NAB’s views or endorsement. This article is for informational purposes only.