Engineering firm takes £3m stake in Norwegian business

Engineering firm Spirax-Sarco  has acquired a £3m stake in a Norwegian energy firm.

The Gloucestershire firm which specialises in thermal energy management and fluid technology solutions Group is to take an ownership stake in Kyoto Group.

As part of the deal an agreement has been signed to accelerate the decarbonisation of industrial process heat with Kyoto’s Heatcube, a molten salt thermal energy storage solution.

Spirax-Sarco Engineering, Kyoto and Iberdrola, Europe’s largest electricity utility business and a global leader in clean energy, will enter into investment, partnership and commercial agreements to support the development of  Heatcube as a world leading technology.

Through Vulcanic, which was acquired by Spirax-Sarco Engineering in 2022, the company has been working with Kyoto since 2021 providing the electric immersion heater and power control systems that power Heatcube.

Spirax-Sarco Engineering will invest £3m in return for a 15 per cent share of Kyoto’s issued share capital.

The partnership agreement covers the commercial and technological development of electrical heaters, as well as other Spirax-Sarco Engineering technologies, for existing and future generations of Heatcube to support commercialisation and market adoption.

Nicholas Anderson, group chief executive of Spirax-Sarco Engineering, said: “Enabling the decarbonisation of critical industrial processes is central to our group’s purpose.

“We have been actively investing in new-to-world decarbonisation solutions through product development since 2020. As we already provide some of the technology that sits behind Heatcube, getting actively involved in supporting Kyoto through direct investment and partnering is a natural extension of our activity in this area.

“We are excited to be working with the teams at Kyoto and Iberdrola in a new, progressive alliance that has a shared purpose to provide innovative solutions that are good for our planet as well as for business.”

Spirax Sarco is headquartered in Cheltenham, has 40 strategically located manufacturing plants around the world and employs more than 10,000 people, including more than 2,100 direct sales and service engineers.

Founded in 2016, Kyoto Group is headquartered in Oslo and has subsidiaries in Spain and Denmark.