The Startup Raising $17 Million for Super-Thin, Wall-Mounted Batteries

Electricity is more expensive in times of peak demand — that’s simply a universal truth. But for many commercial building owners and tenants, their most energy-intensive minutes of the month can have an especially outsized impact on their electricity bill. That’s because of the “demand charge,” a fee based on a building’s single highest burst of power consumption, which can make up over 50% of a customer’s monthly bill. Likewise, shrinking those bursts would not only ease strain on the grid, but could also dramatically lower commercial users’ costs.

Or at least that’s Novele’s pitch. The startup, which makes 2-inch-thick, fire-safe lithium-ion batteries that mount on the interior walls of commercial spaces such as offices, hospitals, and big box retailers, announced Wednesday that it raised an oversubscribed $17 million Series A led by impact-focused investor Boisei Labs. The funding will help the company scale its AI-powered battery system, which networks batteries placed throughout a building and uses software to predict impending spikes in power demand. Just before the peak hits, the system can automatically switch the building from grid power to battery power, helping the customer avoid those costly demand charges.

“We learn how the building consumes power, but we’re also taking into account other considerations, like what day of the week it is, how the building is occupied, when it’s being used, what’s happening with the weather conditions,” Novele’s co-founder and CEO Charles Conwell told me.

Of course, battery storage for commercial customers is nothing new. Tesla, for one, has long sold large batteries like its Megapack, along with software designed to help businesses manage and reduce peak demand. But unlike these larger outdoor systems, Novele designed its thin panels for installation inside occupied spaces like hospital hallways and offices, distributing the batteries throughout a building while operating them as a single, coordinated system.

The systems are custom designed, so Novele told me it couldn’t provide an overall cost estimate. But Conwell told me the batteries typically have a 20- to 40-month payback period, the timeframe in which a customer’s electricity bill savings should eclipse the system’s upfront cost. (The company also offers financing options that allow customers to spread out that cost over time.) And while customers may sign up for the cost savings, there are major decarbonization benefits, too. So-called peak-shaving can reduce the need for peaker plants — natural gas facilities that only fire up when demand is highest. These plants are typically among the grid’s most carbon-intensive assets, as they’re designed to ramp up quickly rather than operate efficiently for long periods.

These automated batteries could also enable commercial buildings to participate in virtual power plant programs, which ease strain on the grid by cutting energy use during periods of high demand or by tapping assets like batteries to send power back to the grid. Using stored energy when needed, Conwell explained, is better than typical demand response initiatives, which often require tenants to change their routines — e.g. when they run the dishwasher or charge an EV — to accommodate the grid. That approach, he said, is either “ineffective or doesn’t make the tenants very happy.”

As the company scales, it also envisions building a portfolio of properties that, if they have “a dense enough footprint,” could work in concert to form their own virtual power plant of sorts, Conwell said.

In the near term, however, Novele plans to use its Series A to expand its team, install more systems, and further develop its software. It’s particularly focused on markets where electricity costs are already high or climbing fast, such as California, New York, New England, and parts of the PJM power market. In PJM in particular, record-high capacity prices — largely driven by data center demand — are pushing electricity bills to new heights.

The company says it has already installed batteries for several Fortune 50 customers, though it’s keeping the identities of these early adopters under wraps. Conwell told me that there’s also “a bunch of installations that are in progress,” and that in the coming year, the company will be working toward making the process of purchasing, installing, and operating Novele’s system as seamless as possible.

Once that foundation is in place, Conwell sees an opportunity to help usher in a more responsive, intelligent future for the built environment. “If you get the infrastructure right, if you bring in the controls — the mechanical controls, the machine learning controls, and the artificial intelligence-driven controls — you start to be able to set the stage for a dynamic, autonomous building of the future.”