Strategic government investment in the leading provider, SK Tes, of energy storage systems (ESS) and power systems across the Asia-Pacific region
- The investment marks SK Tes's entry into energy storage systems (ESS).
- Positions SK Tes as a leader in the second-life battery market.
SK Tes announced its strategic investment in GenPlus, a leading Southeast Asia provider of energy storage systems (ESS) and power systems across the Asia-Pacific region. Founded in 2013, GenPlus’s hybrid ESS offers scalable turnkey solutions that use retired electric vehicle batteries for various commercial and residential energy needs in the secondary market.
ESS systems use a network of optimally connected second-life battery cells to store electricity and are a viable power alternative for green energy plants, remote mining power, and base transmit stations, among other applications.
GenPlus joining SK Tes supports the company’s vision of closing the loop on battery technology and complements its recent $25 million investment in new lithium battery recycling facilities in Singapore and Grenoble, France.
"Investing in technology that keeps SK Tes at the forefront of the sustainability movement is in our DNA," said Gary Steele, SK Tes’s Chief Executive Officer. "Looking ahead, by 2030, there will be over six million battery packs retiring from electric vehicles each year. The global ESS processing infrastructure does not have enough capacity today to provide those batteries with the second life that true closed-loop solutions demand. GenPlus’s management team, engineering strength, and experience will help SK Tes fill that gap."
GenPlus’s Managing Director, Lim Ming Chiat, added: "We are delighted to join SK Tes, an industry leader in IT lifecycle services that understands environmental impact and global compliance. This integration solidifies SK Tes’s commitment to the circular economy, ensuring batteries are recovered and reused to address the ever-growing global demand for ESS solutions."
Safety issues, transboundary movements, hazardous waste designations, and the efficient processing of batteries are challenges that are not going away anytime soon. This investment positions SK Tes as a leader in the growing second-life battery space and helps clients manage the challenges and risks inherent in it.
SK Tes company, GenPlus, wins research grants
An innovative solution by GenPlus, an SK Tes company, has won research grant funding from the Singapore Energy Market Authority and Enterprise Singapore to enhance the mitigation of solar intermittency through cluster Energy Storage Systems. The idea was the brainchild of Lim Ming Chiat, GenPlus Managing Director, and the co-principal investigator at the Experimental Power Grid Centre of the Energy Research Institute @ NTU (ERI@N).
GenPlus’ “Pre-emptive and Self-adaptive Control for Photovoltaic (PV) Cluster Intermittency Mitigation” project is one of five projects underway as part of EMA’s S$25 million program to develop and test energy storage solutions that help Singapore deliver its 1GWp solar power adoption target. Grid stability due to high PV intermittency at large penetration levels is a major concern—especially for a small island country in a tropical climate with rapidly changing weather conditions.
Typical PV intermittency mitigation efforts are reactive and focus on the system-level power injection point. The GenPlus research project is unique in tackling the problem at the PV source by utilizing existing PV installations as geospatial sensors, coupled with an integrated energy storage system controller.
“It will remove the need for costly sensor deployments currently required for PV intermittency mitigation, as the project makes use of existing infrastructure in an innovative way and has high commercial and application potential,” said Lim Ming Chiat. “Our target users are owners of multiple PV installations who would greatly benefit from our technology in accelerating their return on investment.”
Over the next two years, GenPlus and its partners will use the grant to develop the control algorithm and hardware, and to test and demonstrate the technology at actual sites. “It will support government plans to increase solar adoption and drive down the cost of PV installations and energy storage systems,” Lim concluded.
