Why Energy Growth Momentum Invested in H2scan?
In January 2020, we announced that Energy Growth Momentum (EGM) was lead investor in our $13.5 million financing round (in addition to committed capital from El Dorado Investment Company). This month we spoke with EGM partner John Wilson to find out why the company made such a bold investment in H2scan. Here’s what he told us:
Our investment fund focuses on scaling operational and digital technology to improve the cost and carbon efficiency of energy assets. Operational technology will be critical in realizing efficiencies in what is going to be an unprecedented transformation in both energy supply and demand, with erratic distributed supply sources from renewables and new demand loads from data centers (and eventually electric vehicles).
The energy transition will put a lot of load pressure on critical assets like transformers while also requiring consideration as to a capacity market. In our opinion, condition-based-monitoring of transformers and capacity management through electrolysis will be critical to managing and decarbonizing the energy industry, so as a fund, real-time monitoring of hydrogen gets us very excited.
Just to double down on this, and the relevance to H2scan, we are of the opinion that it will become clear to the industry that the foundation of the hydrogen economy will be safety and fiscal metering. So, when we came across H2scan, we were immediately interested in what the company was doing with real-time and remote hydrogen monitoring.
That accounts for the strategic interest, but when it comes to execution, we were particularly attracted to the company’s track record – the client list, installed base and reliability and accuracy of the sensors is unique. Further to that, the company’s leadership of Dennis Reid, along with the strong team at H2scan, cemented our interest.
Looking at 2020 and the COVID-19 pandemic – there has been a lot of uncertainty, but I believe companies like H2scan will see an acceleration in underlying technology adoption. The energy sector will demand real-time, remote decision making to both function in a decentralized market and be competitive.
H2scan perfectly aligns with what we were looking for in an investment. It has been a real privilege to get to know the team so far and I’m looking forward to working with them in realizing the company’s future prospects.
