Petroleum provider Shell has agreed to acquire Next Kraftwerke, a Germany-based virtual power plant operator backed by renewable energy producer Eneco, for an undisclosed amount.
Next Kraftwerke was spun out of Institute of Energy Economics (EWI) at University of Cologne by Jochen Schwill and Hendrik Sämisch, and its business model involves using a large number of decentralised power plants to generate electricity.
The company controls over 10,000 decentralised energy units across Germany, Belgium, Austria, France, Poland, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Italy, covering solar, bioenergy and hydro power.
The plants generate electricity to be traded on behalf of Next Kraftwerke’s customers on the electricity wholesale markets. Shell said it intends to double its electricity business to about 560 terawatt hours by 2030.
Eneco invested an undisclosed amount in Next Kraftwerke in 2017 in return for a 34% stake. It had also been backed by venture capital firms High-Tech Gründerfonds (HTGF) and Neuhaus Partners as well as angel investors Dirk Freise and Martin Ostermayer.
Klaus Lehmann, partner at HTGF, said: “Next Kraftwerke is an impressive example of how a startup can address key challenges of the energy transition quicker than large established companies and solve them with the help of technology.”
