Cheltenham's Spirax-Sarco Engineering to invest in Norway-based Kyoto Group

Published by

Giles Gwinnett

Cheltenham-headquartered Spirax-Sarco Engineering reported it will invest £3 million to take a 15% stake in Norway-based Kyoto Group (Kyoto) and is set to strike deals to support the development of the latter's Heatcube energy storage solution.

Spirax-Sarco Engineering has been working with Kyoto since 2021 providing the electric immersion heater and power control systems that power Heatcube, which provides thermal energy storage and heat generation in one product.

Heatcube is a low-cost, modular storage solution for thermal energy that can use multiple renewable energy sources to heat molten salt to over 415 degrees Celsius. The salt is then used to produce steam for industrial production processes.

Subject to approval at Kyoto's AGM on June 30 this year, Spirax-Sarco Engineering, Kyoto, along with European energy giant Iberdrola will enter into investment, partnership and commercial agreements to support advancing Heatcube as a world leading technology.

In a statement, Nicholas Anderson, group CEO at Spirax-Sarco Engineering plc, said: "Enabling the decarbonisation of critical industrial processes is central to our group's purpose.

"We have been actively investing in new-to-world decarbonisation solutions through product development since 2020. As we already provide some of the technology that sits behind Heatcube, getting actively involved in supporting Kyoto through direct investment and partnering is a natural extension of our activity in this area."

The partnership agreement covers the commercial and technological development of electrical heaters, as well as other Spirax-Sarco Engineering technologies, for existing and future generations of Heatcube.
Heat accounts for two-thirds of industrial energy consumption, and traditionally, nearly all of it is based on fossil fuels. Heatcube provides a sustainable and cost-effective alternative by capturing variable energy from sources such as solar and wind.

Spirax‐Sarco Engineerings has 40 manufacturing plants around the world and employs more than 10,000 people.

It consists of three businesses: Steam Specialties, for the control and management of steam, Electric Thermal Solutions, for advanced electrical process heating and temperature management solutions, and Watson-Marlow, for peristaltic pumping and associated fluid path technologies.
Iberdrola is Europe's largest electricity utility by market capitalization and one of the world's top three electricity companies. In 2022, it posted revenues of nearly €54 billion, net profit of €4.34 billion, with €7.5 billion paid in tax contributions in the countries where it operates.

Giles Gwinnett

Giles Gwinnett is a writer at The Business Magazine. He has been a journalist for more than 20 years and covered a vast array of topics at a range of media settings - in print and online. After his NCTJ newspaper training, he became a reporter in Hampshire before moving to a news agency in Gloucestershire. In recent years, he has been covering the financial markets along with company news for an investor-focused web portal. His many interests include politics, energy and the environment. He lives in Dorset.