TeraWatt Infrastructure, a company that builds electric vehicle charging infrastructure, has raised more than $1 billion in series to build a portfolio of commercial charging centers.
The recent capital injection follows the current round of a $100 million seed round from Keyframe Capital and Cyrus Capital, both with Vision Ridge Partners.
Infrastructure for charging private passenger EVs is becoming more readily available and well developed. But as more electric vehicle models begin to hit the market, the commercial sector will need its own charging stations, and that’s where Terawatt comes in.
“The future of electrified transportation is at a critical juncture, where solutions for large-scale EV charging infrastructure must be developed to meet the electromagnetic needs of all fleets,” said Paul Luce, managing director of Vision Ridge Partners. press release.
After Terawatt’s flotation in May 2021, the company has amassed real estate in strategic locations relevant to fleets, such as highways, and built a growing fleet of charging centers. The $1 billion funding will help TeraWatt both develop charging infrastructure in its current asset portfolio and acquire new assets, said Neha Palmer, CEO of TeraWatt and former head of energy strategy at Google.
“We plan to more than double the number of new hires over the next year,” Palmer told TechCrunch. “In the coming weeks, TeraWatt will announce the largest and most ambitious charging project to date for the electrification of long-distance transportation along a major highway corridor.”
TeraWatt currently has sites in 18 states, some of which the company is actively developing into charging centers, Palmer said. The company initially plans to deploy some additional charging stations in the western United States. TeraWatt works with companies with EV-first business models as well as established companies that are beginning to transition to EVs – and with fleets of light, medium and heavy vehicles.
As more EVs come online, both in the private sphere and fleets, experts worry that the grid won’t be able to handle the influx of demand. TeraWatt solves that problem by considering electrical capacity when choosing charging stations, Palmer said.
Palmer says part of Terawatt’s strategy is to start the development process early enough to partner with utility companies early in the process. The company works on ways to use devices like on-site generation and batteries to connect faster and have more flexibility in energy consumption.
“Frankly speaking, grid capacity will be an industry-wide issue and an issue as the ‘electrify everything’ transition of many industries continues,” Palmer said. “In order to ensure that the grid can be improved in parallel with the transition to electric transport, there must be greater cooperation between stakeholders, grid owners, operators, utilities, regulators and end users.”
