UK power storage company Zenobe Energy Ltd. has secured £410 million ($524 million) of fresh debt financing, taking its total funding to £1 billion.
The company, which specializes in electricity storage, wants to use the funds to build out its electric transport business.
It’s aiming for more than 2,000 electric buses in the UK and Ireland by 2026.
The deal is a sign that investors still have confidence in the continued electrification of UK transport, even after Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced a five-year delay to the ban on the sale of new fossil fuel cars and vans last September.
Banks backing the deal include Aviva Plc, Lloyds Banking Group Plc, NatWest Group Plc and Societe Generale SA.
“Decarbonizing the transport sector is key to the UK achieving its legally binding commitment of Net Zero by 2050,” Chin Ratnayake, managing director at Lloyds Bank, said in a statement. “Zenobe has created a strongly investable platform to roll out zero emissions buses.”
Batteries in electric vehicles also have the potential to double up as storage for renewable power.
Zenobe also owns and operates large-scale batteries connected to the grid that help balance variable power supplied by Britain’s growing fleet of wind farms.
Excess generation from clean energy producers has frequently found nowhere to go, threatening to hinder investment in the sector in the absence of storage options.
