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Climate Change Capital Private Equity Makes €10 Million Smart Grid Investment
(LONDON - 24th November 2008) Climate Change Capital Private Equity ("CPE"), a €200 million fund dedicated to clean technology, is making a €10 million investment in Power PLUS Communications AG ("PPC"), a German company at the forefront of providing broadband communications to catalyse the rollout of smart grid solutions. CPE will become the only institutional investor in PPC following this round and take up seats on PPC's board. In addition to CPE, PPC's management will also hold a significant position in the Company.
PPC is a leading provider of broadband powerline communication ("BPL") systems, the ideal communication solution for the transformation of electricity networks into smart grids. PPC's technology is fully standards based and enables broadband data transfer on low and medium voltage distribution networks. Its systems will form part of the underlying infrastructure that will enable utilities to communicate with their smart meters and support the development of smart grid applications. Founded in 2001, PPC has already sold its products into multiple commercial deployments, connecting more than 300,000 households. The capital invested in this funding round will enable PPC to continue to market and develop its state-of-the-art BPL products and take advantage of the strong growth in smart metering deployments throughout Europe, the Middle East and North America.
Bruno Derungs, a CPE Partner, said: "In the near future we will see a transformation of the passive power grid into an actively managed network where broadband power line communication will play an important role - for example, to enable decentralized renewable power generation to be used more efficiently or to inform consumers about their power consumption on a real time basis. We are very impressed about the performance, quality and market acceptance of PPC's product, as well as the expertise and experience of PPC's team."
Ingo Schönberg, PPC's CEO, said: "We very much appreciated CPE's technical knowledge, investment experience, strategic advice and general support during the fundraising process. This funding constitutes a major milestone for PPC towards our goal to become a leader in the rapidly growing smart grid and smart metering market. The convergence of communication and energy networks into smart grids is a key pillar for improving the efficiency of energy usage. The funding and the support of CPE will accelerate our worldwide expansion and we are sure that our unique BPL solution will become a key technology in the energy efficiency market."
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Enquiries:
Climate Change Capital
Debbie Leitner +44 (0)20 7939 5319 dleitner@c-c-capital.com
PPC
Thomas Wolski +49 (0) 621 4016 5127 t.wolski@ppc-ag.de
NOTES TO EDITORS:
About Power PLUS Communications AG
Power Plus Communications AG ("PPC"), Mannheim (www.ppc-ag.de), is the leading provider of broadband powerline communication (BPL) technology in Europe for future intelligent power grids, so called smart grids. Among others, PPC's Broadband powerline communication system offers utilities a powerful solution for the mandatory implementation of automatic meter reading in Europe. The BPL system is based on the Internet protocol and open interfaces. This enables the fast and easy transfer of current consumption in real time from the electronic meters to the energy provider.
PPC was incorporated as a spin-off from MVV Energie AG (a leading utility in Germany) in 2002, and is a pioneer in the field of broadband powerline communication. PPC has unique experience and competence in BPL, having already passed more then 300,000 households with its real-time communication system. This includes projects in Mannheim, Dresden and Linz as well as numerous smart grid and smart metering projects with well-known utilities, energy grid operators and metering companies all over Europe. Some month ago PPC and its partners were elected by the German Ministry of Economics for the flagship project "E-energy: the ICT based energy system of the future!" based on PPC's trend setting BPL technology.
