Clean Tech Firm Innovatium Bags £3M for Next-Gen Energy Storage System

Image Credit: Innovatium

A clean tech company based in East Kilbride has just secured a £3 million investment from the Scottish National Investment Bank to advance its breakthrough alternative to traditional battery storage. Innovatium, the firm behind the technology, plans to use the funding to ramp up development of its innovative solution for storing renewable energy, one that doesn’t rely on lithium-ion batteries.

At the heart of this effort is PRISMA, an advanced liquid air energy storage system. The concept is both simple and sophisticated. It uses low-cost, off-peak electricity to cool and liquefy compressed air. Later, when energy demand spikes, that liquid air is turned back into compressed air to generate power on demand.

According to the company, PRISMA is designed to tackle one of the biggest challenges in renewable energy, intermittency. Wind and solar power can be unpredictable. PRISMA offers a way to store excess energy when it’s abundant and release it when it’s needed most. Innovatium states that the project could create up to 30 jobs in Scotland over the next four years, providing a boost to both the local economy and the broader green energy sector.

Backing for the company isn’t just coming from Scotland. Hitachi Industrial Equipment Solutions has also stepped in as an investor. This marks Hitachi’s first-ever investment in a Scottish company, and it’s expected to open the door to global partnerships and international growth for Innovatium.

With the demand for sustainable, scalable energy storage rising rapidly, Innovatium’s approach could help reshape how we store and deliver renewable energy, not just in the UK but worldwide.

Brian Jack, CEO of Innovatium Group, said: “We’ve entered a new and very exciting growth phase for us, which includes immediate plans to expand our team, advance PRISMA technology, and build additional depth within the business to meet rising demand from customers.

“This investment gives us the platform to scale up significantly, and we can now offer a much broader portfolio of solutions, creating new value for our customers in the UK and globally. We have never been better placed to deliver solutions to support the energy transition.

Ailsa Young, investment director at the Scottish National Investment Bank, said: “Innovatium’s novel, patented technology is highly scalable and has the potential to significantly reduce industrial carbon emissions across a range of energy-intensive industries, including data centres, where the rapid acceleration of AI has caused environmental concern.

“As an impact investor, we were attracted to Innovatium’s potential to be a driver of Scotland’s net-zero economy, and we are pleased to be investing alongside Hitachi Industrial Equipment Systems, which will also be supporting the commercial rollout of PRISMA.”