Lunar Energy announced on 24 August 2022 that it had acquired Moixa, the UK software company whose GridShare platform manages distributed energy resources, including home batteries and electric vehicle charging1. The announcement came as Lunar emerged from stealth, setting out a mission to electrify homes and provide energy independence to homeowners1.
Lunar said it was founded in August 2020 and has raised $300 million over two rounds, from Sunrun and South Korea's SK Group1. ITOCHU and Honda, previously investors in Moixa, join Lunar's investor group1. The company said it has built a team of nearly 250 employees globally, working from Mountain View, California and London1. It said the capital raised had been used to hire staff, acquire Moixa and invest in product development and manufacturing, in order to bring its first product to market later in 20221.
That first product is described as a next-generation home battery system, the first part of what Lunar calls a product ecosystem1. The company said it would combine new hardware with the GridShare software, now renamed Lunar Gridshare, which it said is deployed across 35,000 homes representing 330MWh of batteries via ITOCHU in Japan, supports smart charging services for Honda electric vehicles, and facilitated UPS's transition to electric vehicle fleets in the UK1.
"In joining Lunar Energy, we have the exciting opportunity to pursue even greater scale for Gridshare by aggregating larger fleets of batteries across the world to better manage clean energy intelligently for homeowners and businesses."
The two published versions of the announcement carry different dates. The press release on PR Newswire is dated 24 August 20221; the copy on Lunar's own site is headed "Published on August 1, 2022" while its text states "MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA (August 24, 2022)"2. No purchase price for Moixa, and no terms of the acquisition, have been reported1.
Why it matters for households
Moixa's GridShare software sits behind home battery systems and smart charging, deciding when a battery charges, discharges or holds energy, and aggregating many homes into a fleet that can be managed together1. For a household with a battery, that software layer is what turns stored electricity into something that can be shifted around peak times and, in some arrangements, traded or used to support the grid. A change of ownership matters because it affects who develops that software, how long existing systems are supported and whether the fleet a home is enrolled in continues to operate as before.
Lunar's stated aim is to connect communities into virtual power plants, which it describes as a route to energy independence for homeowners1. In practice, a virtual power plant depends on a company holding together a large enough fleet of batteries and retaining the software contracts behind them. Moixa's existing deployments in Japan, its Honda charging work and its UK fleet work for UPS are the base Lunar is buying1. What the acquisition means for the terms, warranties or software support of existing Moixa-linked systems in the UK has not been reported1.
What happens next
Lunar said it intends to bring its first product, a home battery system, to market later in 20221. No UK launch date, pricing or availability for that product has been reported1.
Sources2 cited
- Lunar Energy Emerges from Stealth to Deliver Home Electrification at Scale, prnewswire.com
- Press release: Lunar Energy emerges from stealth, lunarenergy.com