CleanTech company Mixergy has raised £3.6 million to continue its rollout of hot water tanks used for firm frequency response.
The Oxford University spin-out has a partnership with Centrica to integrate its hot water tanks into a virtual power plant that is being established in the UK by the energy giant.
The 2.5GW VPP secured permission in September from National Grid to use the tanks for FFR, a service Mixergy says it has now started to provide.
The company has now raised £3.6 million in its Series A financing to both support the rollout of tanks with British Gas customers and to fuel the next stage of growth in developing innovation and efficient tanks, it said.
The lead investor in this round was Foresight Williams Technology, an early stage investor scheme fund collaboration between Foresight Group and Williams Advanced Engineering, with Centrica Innovations also coming back to the company. It made a previous investment into Mixergy in February 2019.
Other investors in the Series A funding round were Oxford Sciences Innovation and IP Group.
Chris Wiles, senior investment manager at Foresight Group, said the fund was “very impressed” with Mixergy’s vision for better hot water tanks that save consumers energy whilst facilitating the uptake of renewables.
“We look forward to supporting Mixergy in the coming years with the rollout of its products across the UK, Europe and North America,” he said.
Mixergy’s tanks use machine learning, enterprise data dashboards and an app interface, heating water only when needed.
It provides FFR through turning on and off when required, achieved through developments in sensing and control, along with a software platform capable of optimising household heating schedules across a national network of smart connected hot water tanks it has dubbed the Internet of Tanks.
Peter Armstrong, CEO of Mixergy, said the funding round comes at an exciting time in markets across the UK, Western Europe and North America.
“With recent pledges to transition from natural gas in new build properties by 2025 across Europe along with unprecedented volatility in the UK’s electricity balancing market, Mixergy is well positioned to accelerate the low carbon transition through relationships with low cost manufacturing supply chains that cater to a global market,” he said.