"Design once, deploy many times" is the stated goal of Intelligent Energy, a UK-based designer of batteries used in scooters, cars and electronic devices.
This ambition is understandable after more than 20 years of research into fuel cells – devices that convert energy sources, such as hydrogen, into power, such as electricity – but one that has been reaching fruition over the past year as the company has doubled in size.
Although the business had yet to reach profitability, according to its last disclosed results from Companies House, Intelligent Energy employs more than 170 people compared with 84 in its 2009 figures. The company made a £7.6m ($11.4m) loss, against a £11.7m loss in 2008, on turnover of £3.8m (£2.7m in 2008).
And the results of its projects are good enough for UK-based utility Scottish & Southern Energy (SSE) to use its corporate venturing unit to take a minority stake late last year. The equity investment was part of a joint venture between SSE and Intelligent Energy into using fuel cells as a combined heat and power (CHP) source for homes.
Nigel Ellis, head of SSE Venture Capital and a director of the joint venture, IECHP, said taking the stake of 1% to 2% in November cemented the relationship. Ellis said: "We had been looking at transport of electrical supplies and generation as we own 50% of a gas grid that transports hydrogen. The joint venture over the past two to three years on CHP was an obvious route to decarbonise the gas grid.
"Hydrogen is long-term fuel where we have no in-house expertise so were looking for a long-term partner. Rivals [to SSE] had fuel cells and we did not, so the joint venture was a leap of faith, and so we backed a horse with options in Intelligent Energy, which has a good few strings to its bow."
Henri Winand, chief executive of Intelligent Energy, said the first commercial test for IECHP would come in the first half of the year and it was recruiting management for the joint venture as part of its development as an independent firm. This development also involved a state-backed venture capital fund, Scottish Equity, taking a small stake in IECHP as part of a £3.7m round.
Winand, the former head of corporate venturing at industrial engine maker Rolls-Royce until joining Intelligent Energy in September 2006, said business had picked up in all its market segments, not just CHP, as its primary fuel-cell design was used by third parties.
He said: "The key organisation is mass-manufacturing fuel cells that can access different market segments from the same building block of clean power. Just like [network equipment company] Qualcomm or [semiconductor designer] ARM, customers come to us for power or consumer electronics and we can do the system engineering."
Intelligent Energy’s fuel cell, called the "proton exchange membrane", is regarded by the company as versatile due to high power densities, modular con-struction allowing it to fit small spaces, low temperature of operation and a relatively high-efficiency system that means it can be switched on and off quickly.
Winand said fuel cells for cars and scooters – the motive segment – had "moved most in the past 13 months". In February, Intelligent Energy launched the Burgman scooter (pictured) with Japan-based manufacturer Suzuki, while in June, London’s black taxis started a trial aiming to do a million miles using fuel cells by the start of next summer’s Olympics in the UK capital.
Taxis and other types of urban delivery vehicle for logistics businesses that are targeted by governments for their carbon emissions are regarded as a near-term target for Intel-ligent Energy in terms of their need for a vehicle with short refuelling time and a standard operating range.
Potentially the most significantboost to Intelligent Energy could come from Germany’s politicians, who passed a law in 2009 requiring hydrogen fuel cells in cars by 2015. The European Union (EU) also has a goal to reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by 80% by 2050, and, in a study designed to work out which type of power source for vehicles could help achieve the goal, has found fuel cells are the lowest-carbon solution for long-distance driving and family-size cars that represent 50% of all cars and 75% of all emissions.
However, there remain challenges in providing the infrastructure and reliability in fuel cells, which are competing against the existing internal combustion engine, battery-power electric vehicles and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles to power the next generation of vehicles. The EU’s technical background on fuel cells and hydrogen said: "Electrochemical energy conversion involves complex developments of materials. Due to the close link between electricity flowand corrosion processes, morphological changes, building of resistive layers and exhaustion of catalytically active components, material development for enhanced lifetimes becomes the major challenge in fuel cell basic research and development."
This research is costing billions of dollars. Japan-based manufacturer Toyota said it was investing $5bn in fuel-cell research and development alone. However, Winand said this offered Intelligent Energy, which has raised about $130m over its lifetime, an opportunity. He said: "Rather than car manufacturers spending $1.5bn on technology they can come to us and we can design the system and help them build it.
"Our pitch is to design once and then deploy many times. We utilise resources efficiently by going for business-to-business contracts, but the challenge is in balancing load capacity – not take on too many contracts at the same time.
"We do not do the manufacturing but only license the IP [intellectual property] from our 44 families of patents, which represent more than 300 individual rights.
"The history of developing a new engine or storage technology is 20 years to reach commercialisation and then enter a period of cost reduction. For us, who knows what the market will want in terms of 2W or 150kW of power, so we have a unit that can fitin all spaces and let the market decide."
Winand said the most surprising market it had entered was consumer electronics as it had not been in Intelligent Energy’s business plan two years previously, but with energy-on-body devices, such as laptops and MP3 players, increasing rapidly in demand, the manufacturers were arriving at the end of their traditional battery lifespans.
He said: "Our other markets are long-term ones, such as aerospace – we work with Airbus and Boeing – and back-up power sources in India for cell towers."
This 22-year history, from research developed at Loughborough University in the UK to the formation of Intelligent Energy in 2001, has led to the company being described as a "mature" venture. Ellis said: "Intelligent Energy is very well run and focused on cost control and delivering. It is a mature start-up."
Key people
Chairman: John Rennocks
Chief executive: Henri Winand
Chief financial officer: Rian Urding
Director of corporate finance: Mark Lawson-Statham
Director of research and technology: Paul Adcock
Director of programmes: Chris Dudfiel
Chief operating and technology officer: Philip Mitchell
Advice on corporate venturing
Henri Winand was previously vice-president of corporate venturing at Rolls-Royce – a UK-listed power systems provider for land, sea and air – joining the boards of its portfolio companies. He previously managed a power systems business on behalf of Rolls-Royce after gaining a PhD from Cambridge University, an MBA from Warwick University and a BEng from Imperial College, London.
Winand said he was grateful to Rolls-Royce for the different experiences he had working there and said the switch from venturing to running an entrepreneurial company had shown the importance of three lessons – the importance of a high degree of networking, understanding pure play investments, and knowing how people talk, whether at large companies and negotiating contracts, or at start-ups, share-holders or customers.