Wärtsilä Acquires Major Energy Storage Player

Finnish technology firm Wärtsilä has acquired Greensmith Energy Management Systems, a firm that specializes in energy storage optimization and integration software, for an undisclosed amount.

Greensmith, which has designed and deployed more than 180 MW of energy storage at 50 sites globally, has developed a software platform, GEMS, which optimizes the performance of energy storage and reportedly powers more than one-third of all energy storage capacity in the U.S. Greensmith’s energy storage installations include five systems in the PJM frequency regulation market, and a 20 MW/80 MWh system with AltaGas in California to address a constraint posed by the Aliso Canyon gas leak.

Wärtsilä has more than 63 GW of installed power capacity across 176 countries. “This is a perfect match,” said Javier Cavada, president at Wärtsilä Energy Solutions, in a May 15 press release. “The addition of Greensmith’s capabilities and expertise will allow Wärtsilä to offer our installed base significant opportunities for hybrid and energy storage solutions along with full in-house capabilities that combine and optimize different forms of power generation, energy storage and demand-side management.”

The acquisition is the latest of a number of corporate deals that are reshaping the energy storage sector. Last year, Total Energy, for example, acquired industrial battery maker Saft, Engie bought Green Charge Networks, Doosan struck an agreement with energy storage systems software provider 1Energy Systems, and Tesla Motors acquired SolarCity.

For more, see: “Battery Storage Goes Mainstream,” in POWER’s May 2017 issue.

—Sonal Patel is a POWER associate editor (@sonalcpatel, @POWERmagazine)