An innovative company which finds new uses for electric car batteries at the end of their life is investing millions of pounds in its Norfolk site.
Connected Energy has received a £15m investment, part of which it intends to use upgrading its 'technical centre' at Hethel, just south of Norwich.
The firm specialises in taking old batteries from electric vehicles once they have degraded and repurposing them for other energy uses.
Matthew Lumsden, its CEO, said the money would go towards increasing the 15-strong workforce at Hethel by 10 within the next year.
It will also be used for "investing in more equipment to enable us to integrate more batteries and scale up our technology".
The firm is a specialist in 'second-life batteries'.
This involves taking them from electric cars once they have degraded by 25pc and are no longer usable in the vehicles.
Using the expertise of engineers at its Hethel site, the batteries are then reprogrammed and placed in a unit that is able to store power created by other renewable energy sources, such as solar panels.
It has deals with several car companies, including Renault and Volvo, to use their batteries.
Connected Energy has its headquarters in Newcastle upon Tyne, but its Hethel centre is described as the company's 'brain', where key engineering and software development takes place.
It already has 16 systems operating across Europe in Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands, as well as in the UK, including one at Suffolk County Council's archive centre in Ipswich.
A spokesperson for Connected Energy confirmed that it had more deals in the pipeline but was unable to say whether any would be in Norfolk.
The £15m comes from five investors - Caterpillar Venture Capital Inc, the Hinduja Group, Mercuria, OurCrowd and Volvo Energy.
Joachim Rosenberg, president Volvo Energy, said: “This forward-leaning investment aims to facilitate the scaling-up of second-life battery energy storage systems and further secure circular business opportunities for the forthcoming ramp-up in Volvo Group’s second-life battery returns.”
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