Invinity Energy Systems plc announced that the United States Department of Energy plans to fund projects that will use 84 MWh of Invinity's next-generation product, code-named "Mistral," in six sites across the U.S. The formal DOE award contracting and final negotiation process for all six projects is expected to conclude before the end of 2023. Once contracting is completed, the development phase will commence with delivery of the batteries by Invinity expected in 2025. Five of the six sites will be developed by a consortium led by the National Renewables Cooperative Organisation and supported by Invinity and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.

Funding expected from the DOE, to be made under the Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations LDES Demonstrations Program, will be used alongside matching funds committed by NCRO consortium partners to purchase, install and operate 72 MWh of Invinity vanadium flow batteries for use by five utility cooperatives across the U.S. Midwest and Southeast.   Invinity and its NRCO consortium partners expect these projects to improve energy independence in the rural communities they serve and, more broadly, demonstrate the benefits of longer duration energy storage technologies such as Invinity's VFBs. Each of the five projects will be operated by individual electric cooperative utilities and feature a 14.4 MWh Invinity VFB comprising a single Mistral array that will balance intermittent wind and solar generation and improve grid resilience.

Around 800 U.S. cooperative utilities provide power to 42 million Americans. This proposed award marks significant further progress for the Company in this market, having previously announced in June 2023 a 2.1 MWh VS3 sale to U.S. electric cooperative OPALCO in San Juan County, Washington, reinforcing the importance of this customer segment for the Company in the U.S. The sixth site, also associated with the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, is expected to see Invinity's VFBs installed at PNNL supported by funds from OCED under its Lab Call programme. PNNL, with a long history of advancing the state of the art in emerging energy technologies, has been selected by OCED to purchase and demonstrate a 12 MWh installation of Mistral over a 10-year period.

PNNL has conducted extensive research into flow batteries in general and vanadium-based flow battery electrolytes in particular. Through this programme, PNNL will seek to explore the boundaries of the services and capabilities that long duration energy storage can deliver to the grid operators, energy consumers and microgrid operators across the U.S. These 84 MWh of projects mark important progress for Invinity in building a robust order book for its next-generation product, expected to formally launch in 2024. This news follows on from Invinity's recent announcement of the Company's first commercial order for its Mistral product from Taiwanese strategic partner Everdura on 14 September 2023 by way of an amendment to a previous VS3 order.

While final contracts remain subject to negotiation, Invinity expects to sell its Mistral systems for these projects at a price point this is approximately one third more competitive than recent VS3 sales, and deliver them at a positive gross margin in support of the Company's industrial strategy. These opportunities were included as part of the Qualified category in Invinity's commercial pipeline as disclosed at the announcement of the Company's 2022 Financial Results and Current Trading on 28 June 2023, and will move to the Advanced category of that pipeline as of 22 September 2023.