Japan's PowerX raises $32m Series B
PowerX, a Japanese start-up developing a “battery tanker” for shipping stored renewable electricity across oceans, has raised a USD 32m Series B round featuring US-based Translink Capital.
Translink, which maintains an office Tokyo, is investing via two funds: a USD 70 transportation technology fund set up in early 2019 with Japan Airlines and the NEC Orchestrating Future Fund. The latter closed on USD 140m last November with support from diversified technology giant NEC, private equity firm Japan Industrial Partners, and Indonesian shipping services company JICT, among others.
Other participants in the Series B include Spiral Capital, Frontive Holding, Mori Trust, and Japan Green Investment Corp for Carbon Neutrality, a public-private fund newly established by the Ministry of the Environment. There are also several strategic investors such as Senko Group Holdings, Tohoku Electric Power, Yaskawa Electric Corp, Japan Petroleum Exploration, and Nippon Gas.
PowerX is active across the design and construction of a range of renewable energy storage and transportation technologies, including ultrafast electric vehicle (EV) chargers and battery systems, shipping container-sized batteries, and software for optimising battery usage.
Its flagship project, Power Ark, is an in-development ocean tanker that will collect clean energy from remote power stations - for example, offshore wind farms in rugged environments - and ship the stored energy to cities and retrofitted fossil fuel power plants.
Power Ark will use marine-grade batteries with improved energy density parameters, which is expected to increase the viability of long-distance transport. The project is planned to come in two sizes, a massive 2-gigawatt capacity ship and a nimbler 240-megawatt version. It is hoped to be operational by 2025.
Recent progress includes the completion of construction of an automated battery factory and local certification for the EV charging system, called Hypercharger. There have also been partnerships with Tokyu Land Corporation, Olympia, and solar power company West Group, as well as an agreement with Muroran City in Hokkaido to create a carbon-neutral shipping hub for battery tankers.
“We firmly believe that storage batteries will play a pivotal role in advancing the further adoption of renewable energy,” Ishii Yoshitaka, a representative director and executive vice president at Japan Petroleum Exploration, said in a statement.
“Through our investment in PowerX, we are dedicated to working towards realising a carbon-neutral society by 2050. Moreover, we aspire to further evolve as a comprehensive energy company in harmony with the current era by exploring the utilization of batteries in our energy business and new ventures.”
PowerX’s earlier investors include Future Creation Capital, K4 Ventures, Chugoku Capital Partners, MY.Alpha Management, MUFG Bank, Mitsui & Co, Food Techno Engineering, and Imabari Shipbuilding.
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