Aquion Energy files for protection under Chapter 11
PITTSBURGH – Aquion Energy Inc., the developer and manufacturer of aqueous hybrid ion (saltwater) batteries and energy storage systems, said Wednesday it filed a voluntary petition under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code.
The company, which had research and development facilities in Lawrenceville and a manufacturing plant in New Stanton, said in a news release it retained a core R&D team by terminating 80 percent of its personnel.
The company, which said it is pursuing a sale of its assets, paused all factory operations, and stopped the marketing and selling of its products. Aquion said the moves were made to provide it with sufficient time to proceed with an orderly process to sell the assets.
“Creating a new electrochemistry and an associated battery platform at commercial scale is extremely complex, time-consuming and very capital intensive. Despite our best efforts to fund the company and continue to fuel our growth, the company has been unable to raise the growth capital needed to continue operating as a going concern,” stated Scott Pearson, Aquion’s outgoing chief executive officer and Suzanne Roski, who is now the company’s chief restructuring officer. She is a managing director at Protiviti, a Virginia-based consulting firm offering professional services around entering and exiting bankruptcy situations.
According to Pearson, “A bankruptcy sale creates a unique opportunity for the right strategic buyer that can deploy transformative capital and synergies onto Aquion. Over its seven years of operation, Aquion created a very promising energy storage platform and proved it can build a compelling product at scale in a highly-automated fashion and sell it globally to both integrators and end-customers.
Pearson noted Aquion captured many prestigious awards including: MIT’s Top 100 Smartest Companies (2015, 2016), Global Cleantech – North American Company of the Year (2017), Platt’s Energy – Rising Star Award (2016), and the EES Award for Energy Storage (2015).”
Aquion said it will work in the coming weeks to secure a bidder to purchase substantially all of its operating assets. It then intends to seek approval from the Bankruptcy Court for a competitive bidding and auction process to offer other interested bidders an opportunity to win the right to purchase the assets of the company.