Wilsonville-based ESS has named a director for Europe and says it expects to begin deployments on the continent in the second half of the year.
The grid-scale battery maker, which went public last October, named Alan Greenshields to the European post. He’s held various senior executive positions in Europe over the past three decades, including with battery companies.
ESS (NYSE: GWH) makes a unique iron-based flow battery that it bills as a better alternative to lithium-ion batteries for long-duration energy storage, or LDES, increasingly in need as climate change drives a transition to intermittent renewable resources.
ESS noted a second, new imperative for its product in Europe — as an aid in reducing dependence on gas-fired power plants following the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, the continent’s biggest gas supplier.
ESS began shipping its second-generation Energy Warehouse product in the third quarter last year, although none had been fully deployed as of Dec. 31 and the company has “not yet met revenue recognition criteria,” according to a filing this week. A larger-scale system called Energy Center remains in development.
Last September, ESS announced an order for 17 Energy Warehouse systems from the Spanish division of Enel Green Power, a global renewable energy developer.
ESS had 160 full-time employees as of the end of 2021. It reported $60.2 million in losses from operations in 2021, up from $17.4 million in 2020 as it scaled up the Wilsonville plant.
