QIA has been making increasing investments in the green energy arena

Qatar Investment Authority (QIA), the country’s sovereign wealth fund, will invest $125mn into Fluence, a global battery storage joint venture of Siemens AG and AES Corp. 

The investment will give QIA a 12.5% stake in the company, which is valued at $1bn after the investment. Siemens and AES will each retain 44% stake in Fluence. The investment will also allow Fluence to expand its energy storage offerings and develop its software that can maximize battery use in power markets. 

“We believe the global problem of climate change can only be tackled by leveraging the combined capabilities of technologists and investors from around the world,” said Manuel Perez Dubuc, Fluence’s Chief Executive Officer, in a statement. 

“We see energy storage as the linchpin of a decarbonised grid and adding QIA to our international shareholder base will allow Fluence to innovate even faster and address the enormous global market for large-scale battery-based energy storage,” he added.

The global energy storage business is expected to boom in the coming decades as utilities will look to batteries to backstop an increasing amount of intermittent solar and wind power. BloombergNEF forecasts that the worldwide energy storage market could attract nearly $1 trillion in investments over the next three decades.

Fluence will have about $500 million in revenue this year and expects it to grow annually at 40% to reach $3 billion by the end of 2025, Gluski told investors in August.

QIA is already backing the battery company QuantumScape, which was acquired by a special purpose acquisition company in late November and whose shares have been on a meteoric rise ever since.

One of six founding members of the One Planet Sovereign Wealth Fund Initiative, QIA is a multi-billion dollar investment vehicle that has significant stores of capital to continue its support of climate tech companies like Fluence.

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