Shell has completed the sale of Bavarian residential battery storage and virtual power plant company sonnen to Malta-based family office TIVEN, closing out one of the oil major’s most closely watched distributed-energy bets after seven years, the company confirmed to Energy-Storage.news on August 25, 2026.
Seven years, one write-down, and out
Shell first invested €60 million in sonnen in 2018 and acquired the Wildpoldsried-headquartered firm outright the following year, part of a broader push into distributed energy resources that also brought UK retailer First Utility, aggregator Limejump and EV charging network New Motion into the group. By 2023 Handelsblatt reported that Shell had put sonnen up for sale at a valuation of €1.35–1.8 billion, seeking buyers for at least a 51% stake. Financial terms of the TIVEN transaction were not disclosed.
Who is buying
TIVEN is the private investment arm of AURELIUS founding partner Gert Purkert and will be advised by AURELIUS WaterRise, the group’s operations advisory firm. “We believe TIVEN and AURELIUS WaterRise are well-positioned to support sonnen’s continued development,” a Shell spokesperson said. Shell framed the divestment as part of “portfolio high-grading efforts” and a focus on parts of the power value chain where it has “differentiated capabilities,” including asset-backed power trading.
What sonnen keeps
The sale takes with it one of Europe’s largest residential virtual power plants. sonnen has aggregated tens of thousands of its sonnenBatterie units into VPPs across Germany, launched its first U.S. VPP in Utah and expanded battery-only VPP programs in Texas with El Paso Electric and Base Power. It also retains manufacturing sites in Wildpoldsried, Atlanta and Adelaide capable of about 10,000 units a month.
Why it matters
The deal caps a period of consolidation among European home-storage brands and is the latest sign of oil majors slimming their DER portfolios rather than growing them. It comes in the same week Shell is refocusing power trading and as U.S. IPPs Swift Current and Avantus raise more than $1 billion for clean energy projects. The sonnen exit follows related shifts in the sector such as Lyten’s move on Norway’s Morrow Batteries, and lands as grid-scale peers such as CIP’s Coalburn 1 500MW/1GWh BESS and Invinity’s 2.1GWh vanadium flow project in Switzerland race to build out utility-scale storage.
Reporting based on coverage from Energy-Storage.news and Shell’s statement to the trade press.