GRAZ, AUSTRIA: Ceres Power Holdings plc has signed a strategic collaboration with AVL List GmbH, a global powertrain engineering consultancy with a deep pedigree in fuel cell development, to accelerate customer adoption and product development of solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) technology for numerous transportations, stationary or other applications.

AVL List GmbH has 20 years of fuel cell engineering experience and is the world’s largest independent company for the development, simulation and testing of all types of powertrain systems.

It has 11,500 employees, 65% of whom are engineers and scientists, in 26 countries worldwide delivering an annual turnover of circa €2 billion.

Drawing on AVL’s strength in engineering consulting, the collaboration with Ceres will unite the IP portfolios into a world-leading system-engineering competence, bringing together each company’s systems-related technology, expertise and intellectual property to conduct joint research and development for onward licensing to customers.

It is intended to expand the number of products integrating Ceres’ technology and the first agreement has been signed with an unnamed customer.

Under the terms of the collaboration, both parties can continue to market and licence their technology to their individual customers.

By bringing their leading IP together Ceres and AVL can offer customers one of the most comprehensive IP portfolios for SOFC systems, and together innovate higher performance solutions and new applications. These in turn can be jointly licensed to customers, creating royalty revenue opportunities that are shared between the two partners.

Access to AVL’s business development resources will significantly expand Ceres’ global reach to quickly identify applications and customers who will benefit from Ceres’ differentiated technology.

This greater access to customers and product applications will enhance Ceres’ ability to scale the business and to generate significant value through its licensing model. 

In turn, AVL gains access to Ceres’ unique systems technology as its integration partner. The agreement does not affect existing or future programmes with current partners.

It is expected that system customers from this relationship with AVL will drive demand from Ceres’ stack manufacturing partners, currently Bosch and Doosan, which in turn will generate stack royalty payments for Ceres.

Commenting on the deal, Ceres’ Chief Executive Phil Caldwell said: “The potential for Ceres’ technology to play a role in the decarbonisation of the global energy system is substantial, and this collaboration with AVL List GmbH is a significant step in our strategy to accelerate its adoption in an expanded number of applications and markets.

As a licensing business, our ability to scale depends on successfully embedding our technology with a greater number of customers and AVL’s global footprint, engineering scale and track-record in the fuel cell market, makes them an ideal partner for Ceres.”

Georg List, Vice President Corporate Strategy at AVL, added: “We are looking forward to partnering with Ceres. We trust we can jointly make SOFC technology available for new and leading-edge solutions. AVL’s broad competence portfolio for SOFC systems and our engineering and integration capabilities – paired with Ceres’ unique technology and solutions portfolio – will ensure a compelling joint offering in this fast-growing market.”

Ceres is a world-leading developer of next generation solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) and electrochemical technology. Its asset-light, licensing model has seen it establish partnerships with some of the world’s largest engineering and technology companies, such as Weichai in China, Bosch in Germany, Miura in Japan, and Doosan in South Korea, to develop systems and products that address climate change and air quality challenges for transportation, industry, data centres and everyday living.

Ceres is listed on the AIM market of the London Stock Exchange (“LSE”) (AIM: CWR) and is classified by the LSE Green Economy Mark, which recognises listed companies that derive more than 50% of their activity from the green economy. www.ceres.tech

AVL is the world’s largest independent company for the development, simulation and testing of powertrain systems (hybrid, combustion engine, transmission, electric drive, batteries, fuel cells and software) for passenger cars, trucks and large engines. AVL has more than 11,500 employees all over the world. In 2019, sales revenues reached EUR 1.97 billion. (https://www.avl.com/)