M&A

Houston company acquired by private equity​ firm, plans to expand support of energy transition

The deal and financial support will help Saber to expand its services within the energy transition, including the ability to build out renewables and battery resources amid the electrification of the U.S. economy. Photo via Getty Images

A Houston-based infrastructure services platform has been acquired by an energy industry-focused private equity firm.

Saber Power Services announced last month that it has been acquired by an investor group led by Greenbelt Capital Management from funds managed by Oaktree Capital Management. The acquisition was in partnership with funds managed by Schroders Capital, StepStone Group, and Wafra Inc., according to the company's news release.

Saber, founded in 2010, is an electrical services firm that provides design, construction, testing, and maintenance services and solutions across the energy spectrum — renewables, battery storage, utility, industrial, and energy infrastructure markets. The company's customers are located throughout Texas and the Southeast.

“With over a decade of experience, the Saber Power team has demonstrated its ability to provide a safe, reliable and high-performance service offering that excels in complex environments," Brian Bratton, CEO of Saber, says in the release. "We are excited for Saber’s next chapter and believe this investment from Greenbelt demonstrates the market leading position of our business and our customers’ trust in the quality of our work."

The terms of the deal were not disclosed, but some of Saber’s management team will maintain ownership of a significant stake in the company, according to the news release. Greenbelt, the acquiring party, secured debt and equity financing from Blackstone Credit.

“We are excited to partner with Greenbelt and look forward to supporting Saber with the next phase of its growth," say Blackstone representatives in the release. "Blackstone Credit invests in market leading energy-transition companies and believes Saber is well-positioned to play an important role in this space.”

The deal and financial support will help Saber to expand its services within the energy transition, including the ability to build out renewables and battery resources amid the electrification of the U.S. economy.

“The energy landscape is rapidly evolving as electrification trends continue to impact commercial and industrial end markets," Sam Graham, principal at Greenbelt, says. "Both physical assets and power markets will need to adapt to support load shifting, bi-directional power flows, and meaningfully increased power demand, all of which require increased grid complexity and strengthens demand for Saber’s specialized engineering, design, construction and maintenance services.”

Chris Murphy, partner at Greenbelt, adds that modernization of the grid is an important sector focus for the company.

"We believe Saber’s end-to-end service platform is critical to facilitate the growing penetration of distributed energy resources across the grid, as well as meet the increasing demands of mass-scale industrial electrification," he says. "We are thrilled to partner with Saber’s experienced and talented executive team and believe our history of investing across the new energy economy will allow us to help accelerate the Company’s growth.”

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A View From HETI

Rice University scientists' “recharge-to-recycle” reactor has major implications for the electric vehicle sector. Photo courtesy Jorge Vidal/Rice University.

Engineers at Rice University have developed a cleaner, innovative process to turn end-of-life lithium-ion battery waste into new lithium feedstock.

The findings, recently published in the journal Joule, demonstrate how the team’s new “recharge-to-recycle” reactor recharges the battery’s waste cathode materials to coax out lithium ions into water. The team was then able to form high-purity lithium hydroxide, which was clean enough to feed directly back into battery manufacturing.

The study has major implications for the electric vehicle sector, which significantly contributes to the waste stream from end-of-life battery packs. Additionally, lithium tends to be expensive to mine and refine, and current recycling methods are energy- and chemical-intensive.

“Directly producing high-purity lithium hydroxide shortens the path back into new batteries,” Haotian Wang, associate professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering, co-corresponding author of the study and co-founder of Solidec, said in a news release. “That means fewer processing steps, lower waste and a more resilient supply chain.”

Sibani Lisa Biswal, chair of Rice’s Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and the William M. McCardell Professor in Chemical Engineering, also served as co-corresponding author on the study.

“We asked a basic question: If charging a battery pulls lithium out of a cathode, why not use that same reaction to recycle?” Biswal added in the release. “By pairing that chemistry with a compact electrochemical reactor, we can separate lithium cleanly and produce the exact salt manufacturers want.”

The new process also showed scalability, according to Rice. The engineers scaled the device to 20 square centimeters, then ran a 1,000-hour stability test and processed 57 grams of industrial black mass supplied by industry partner Houston-based TotalEnergies. The results produced lithium hydroxide that was more than 99 percent pure. It also maintained an average lithium recovery rate of nearly 90 percent over the 1,000-hour test, showing its durability. The process also worked across multiple battery chemistries, including lithium iron phosphate, lithium manganese oxide and nickel-manganese-cobalt variants.

Looking ahead, the team plans to scale the process and consider ways it can sustain high efficiency for greater lithium hydroxide concentrations.

“We’ve made lithium extraction cleaner and simpler,” Biswal added in the release. “Now we see the next bottleneck clearly. Tackle concentration, and you unlock even better sustainability.

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