Singapore’s energy company SP Group (SP) announced a strategic investment in The Mobility House AG (TMH) to explore smart charging (V1G) and vehicle-to-grid (V2G) feasibility in Singapore. SP will leverage TMH’s expertise and technology in Europe and the United States to boost Singapore’s electric mobility capabilities, enabling its energy system to integrate more renewable energy and ultimately mitigate climate change.
IMPROVED acted as the financial advisor to The Mobility House in this European-Asian cross-border transaction. Following numerous landmark deals within the global Mobility and EV Charging domain, and despite the current challenging market conditions due to COVID-19, IMPROVED successfully leveraged its global investor network and sector expertise to find the best strategic and financial partner for The Mobility House to support and accelerate their R&D and international roll-out efforts. Despite COVID-19, we have managed an efficient, but virtual, fundraising process with all the European and Asian deal teams involved.
Operating from Munich, Zurich and Belmont (California), TMH is a technology company that provides a non-proprietary software for integrating vehicle batteries into power grids using intelligent charging and storage solutions. The collaboration with SP, a leading energy utilities group in the Asia Pacific, expands TMH’s reach into Asia. Together, SP and TMH aim to accelerate the goal of a zero-emission future on a global scale and realise the commercial integration of electric vehicles into the energy market.
With its hardware-agnostic Charging and Energy Management system, ChargePilot, TMH created the basis for uni- and bi-directional integration of electric vehicles into the power grid. The system not only manages the grid-optimised charging process of vehicles but has also been marketing over 3,000 stationary vehicle batteries commercially in various energy markets since 2016, while always considering cycling costs and battery ageing. ChargePilot has also been successfully implemented in several hundred projects in Europe and the USA while utilising the latest, advanced cyber security methods. The collaboration between SP and TMH will add value to existing partnerships with international car manufacturers, paving the way for a zero-emission future. In Singapore, the phasing-out of Internal Combustion Engine vehicles by 2040 will accelerate the adoption of electric vehicles (EVs) and the rollout of more EV charging points.
With the Singapore government’s target to increase solar penetration to reach 2GWp by 2030, integrating V2G technology into the national grid can be the key to managing the intermittency of renewables while maintaining grid stability and reliability. Similarly, the ambitious climate target of the EU achieving climate neutrality by 2050 and the Paris Agreement’s goal of keeping the increase in global average temperature to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels can be achieved by focusing on renewable energy sources and integrating EVs into the grid.
This investment therefore not only brings Singapore a step closer towards lowering the national carbon footprint but will subsequently bring great benefits to a cleaner energy future worldwide. The investment of SP follows the financial commitment of the European Investment Bank (EIB) that was announced on August 18, 2020. EIB and TMH, have signed a EUR 15 million financing agreement to promote the integration of electric vehicles into the energy markets.
The loan will allow TMH to push ahead with the R&D for its intelligent Charging and Energy Management system ChargePilot, thereby supporting the rollout of electric vehicles along with their cost-effective and optimised integration into the power grid in Europe. The transaction is supported by the InnovFin Energy Demonstration Project facility, which is funded under the EU’s current research and innovation programme Horizon 2020.
