• Exclusive Content
  • Events
  • Endeavor Business Media Energy
    1. Energy Storage

    Fluence adding AI-driven software to Energy Storage & Renewable applications with $30M Nispera deal

    April 11, 2022
    Nispera's software products are intended to help customers monitor, analyze and forecast performance levels of renewable energy assets. The Swiss company’s utility-scale AI platform has about 8 GW of wind and solar under management
    Image credit Fluence
    Energy Storage Split Image 3 900x627 62545b27cf0f5

    Energy Storage joint venture Fluence is tacking on artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities with its latest acquisition.

    Fluence is buying software-as-a-service provider Nispera in a $30 million all-cash transaction. Fluence itself was formed initially as a joint venture with Siemens and AES and now is a publicly traded company.

    Nispera is a Zurich-based AI and machine learning technology firm targeting the renewable energy sector. Its software products are intended to help customers monitor, analyze and forecast performance levels of renewable energy assets.

    The Swiss company’s utility-scale AI platform has about 8 GW of wind and solar under management.

    “Nispera accelerates our plan to grow our existing digital capabilities,” said Fluence Chief Digital Officer Seyed Madaeni. “As we build a comprehensive digital product suite for customers to better understand, control, dispatch, optimize, and maintain their renewable energy and storage assets, Nispera’s use of machine learning and AI will be highly complementary to the advanced applications already being developed at Fluence. Nispera’s cutting edge technology will also support the broader Fluence ecosystem of energy storage products, services, and digital applications.”

    Related stories

    Siemens, AES file to take Fluence joint venture public

    Madeira Utility contracting for Battery Storage plant

    Subscribe to EnergyTech's free, tri-weekly newsletter for more Insights into the Mission Critical Energy Transition

    In acquiring and combining with Nispera, Fluence plans to merge its applications to offer customers a “manage app.” The Virginia-based firm, in addition to its Fluence IQ digital application line, offers battery energy storage capacity and integration systems to utility and non-utility customers.

    It is contracted to bring grid stabilizing solutions to balance wind and solar for TECO in Taiwan. Fluence also recently announced a contract to deliver a 50-MWh energy storage system in Australia.

    The deal is expected to close sometime in the third quarter. In addition to the $30 million buyout to existing private investors, Fluence is going to issue restricted stock to Nispera’s management team.

    The stock allocation will be vested over three years for retention purposes, according to the report. The leadership team will operate in Zurich under the Fluence brand name.

    -- -- -- 

    (Rod Walton, senior editor for EnergyTech, is a 14-year veteran of covering the energy industry both as a newspaper and trade journalist. He can be reached at [email protected]).

    Follow us on Twitter @EnergyTechNews_

    About the Author

    Rod Walton, EnergyTech Managing Editor | Senior Editor

    For EnergyTech editorial inquiries, please contact Managing Editor Rod Walton at [email protected].

    Rod Walton has spent 15 years covering the energy industry as a newspaper and trade journalist. He formerly was energy writer and business editor at the Tulsa World. Later, he spent six years covering the electricity power sector for Pennwell and Clarion Events. He joined Endeavor and EnergyTech in November 2021.

    Walton earned his Bachelors degree in journalism from the University of Oklahoma. His career stops include the Moore American, Bartlesville Examiner-Enterprise, Wagoner Tribune and Tulsa World. 

    EnergyTech is focused on the mission critical and large-scale energy users and their sustainability and resiliency goals. These include the commercial and industrial sectors, as well as the military, universities, data centers and microgrids. The C&I sectors together account for close to 30 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S.

    He was named Managing Editor for Microgrid Knowledge and EnergyTech starting July 1, 2023

    Many large-scale energy users such as Fortune 500 companies, and mission-critical users such as military bases, universities, healthcare facilities, public safety and data centers, shifting their energy priorities to reach net-zero carbon goals within the coming decades. These include plans for renewable energy power purchase agreements, but also on-site resiliency projects such as microgrids, combined heat and power, rooftop solar, energy storage, digitalization and building efficiency upgrades.

    Email