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dcbel Inc., the Montreal-based company behind a technology that enables electric vehicles to help power homes, will receive up to $55 million (all figures U.S. unless otherwise noted) to support commercialization in North America and Europe.
The funding will be used to accelerate deployment of dcbel’s technology. Its flagship product is a home energy system named Ara (formerly r16), which allows homes to be solar-powered and store energy for later use with a battery.
An electric vehicle (EV) can be charged using a home’s rooftop solar panels, or the energy can be stored in the battery. A bidirectional EV charger also lets a homeowner tap into an EV’s battery to power their residence.
"This investment marks a pivotal inflection point for dcbel, enabling us to accelerate our growth and further our mission of providing sustainable energy solutions that empower homeowners and communities," Marc-André Forget, CEO of dcbel, said in the announcement.
The U.S. market is key for dcbel. Its first Ara units were shipped to California and New York, with manufacturing taking place in Texas.
The company anticipates expanding sales to every U.S. state. It has launched Ara in the U.K.
Ara backs home energy resilience
With Ara, dcbel combines hardware and software to manage rooftop solar panels, EVs and batteries. Its apps track information such as the power source charging an EV’s battery, how much electricity is being generated by the home’s solar panels, energy consumption and carbon emissions.
To lower electricity costs, Ara will charge an EV or home battery when rates are low and discharge batteries at peak hours. When electricity prices rise, it will release excess power to the grid, generating revenue.
Facilitating energy resilience is central to Ara, Matthieu Vidricaire, dcbel's head of growth and operations, told Sustainable Biz Canada in 2023. The combination of a solar power system, two-way EV charging and home battery is designed to provide steady electricity supply in locations that have unreliable grids and are strained by extreme weather events.
For those reasons, California and Texas have been priorities of the company. California’s wildfires and scorching heat waves in Texas have tested electricity grids in both states in recent years. Back-up battery sources supported by Ara are one solution to help homeowners.
“Your average Californian home owner is looking for the kind of attributes we want to bring to the market,” Vidricaire said. “‘I don’t need to be off-grid, but I need (a solution), because there is a fair amount of outages — planned and unplanned — for which I would like to be less disrupted.’”
dcbel’s fundraise and investment rounds
The Canada Growth Fund Inc. will contribute approximately 73 per cent of the new funding, with Montreal-based Idealist Climate Impact Fund LP and other investors providing the remainder.
It supplements the funding dcbel has raised in the past five years, such as a $50-million Series B led by Idealist, $40 million in 2021 and a $52-million grant from the California Energy Commission.
Idealist, which has been a shareholder in dcbel since 2023, has a “strong conviction that dcbel offers a unique solution to satisfy the growing customer needs for smart, clean and cost-efficient energy solution(s),” Pierre Larochelle, co-managing partner of Idealist, said.
“We look forward to continuing to work with the dcbel management team as they scale their business globally."
The Canada Growth Fund, a public fund supporting Canadian cleantech companies, has now closed 12 transactions and committed approximately C$2.3 billion.
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