ESS, promising big things as a public company, on Thursday gave its best indication yet that it might be able to deliver.
The Wilsonville battery maker announced an order for 17 of its “Energy Warehouse” flow battery systems from the Spanish division of Enel Green Power, a global renewable energy developer.
The order translates to 8.5 megawatt-hours of energy storage. That’s not a huge amount compared to lithium-ion battery systems popping up these days, including those done by Tualatin-based Powin Energy. But it’s several times anything ESS had previously announced, and once deployed would be “among the largest battery storage resources in Spain,” ESS said.
“With this project, we’re going to assess and validate the ESS flow batteries, which we selected due to their right combination of long-duration capacity, long-life performance, environmental sustainability and safe operation,” Pasquale Salza, head of long-duration storage and hybrid systems for Enel Green Power, said in a statement.
ESS says its iron-based flow battery, an alternative technology to lithium-ion, is better suited to deliver the four to 24 hours of output that will be necessary as intermittent renewable resources dominate the grid.
The Energy Warehouse is a shipping-container-sized unit that the company is currently manufacturing. ESS targets commercial customers and utilities with the unit, often for microgrid setups. In the deployment in Spain, it will be used to support a solar power plant, ESS said.
A larger configuration, the Energy Center, is due out next year. It’s seen providing large-scale storage for grid operators.
A special-purpose acquisition company (SPAC) and ESS in May announced their intention to merge and take ESS public in a deal that valued the company at $1.1 billion.
In presentations, ESS has projected rapid revenue growth from $2 million this year, to $37 million in 2022, $300 million in 2023 and on up to $3.5 billion in 2027.
The SPAC has set Oct. 5 for a shareholder vote on the merger. Assuming the vote passes, ESS could be publicly traded within days of that.
ESS employs about 165 people and continues to grow, CEO Eric Dresselhuys said in an interview last week.
