US energy storage company ESS said a class action lawsuit against it was dropped by plaintiffs without any payment or other consideration from ESS.
The action was brought following a Grizzly Research report published in December 2022.
In its report, Grizzly claimed among other things that ESS Tech Inc’s biggest customer was really an undisclosed related party without operations.
“As ESS has consistently stated, the short seller report contained numerous false and misleading assertions and allegations, including claims related to ESS’ relationship with its Australian customer, Energy Storage Industries – Asia Pacific (ESI). The voluntary dismissal underscores that the claims made in the report by a self-described short seller are meritless,” it said in a statement.
Grizzly did not respond to a request for comment.
Separately, BEST received a report from a player in the long-duration energy market that ESS batteries were not working properly and were being replaced. ESS spokesperson Morgan Pitts told BEST: “I am not aware of any specific circumstances where our batteries have been replaced by those of another company.
“The report you mention could be referring to our Gen1 Energy Warehouse units (deployed before 2021) which, unrelated to third parties and as we have previously publicly disclosed, have mostly been removed, replaced or upgraded at this point.”
He said ESS began shipping its current model, the Gen2, in 2021. It now has a number of units in the field, either in operation or various stages of commissioning.
“We are continuing to manufacture and deliver iron flow battery systems to our customers worldwide.”
It recently began deliveries to the Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD). An initial six systems are part of overall deal to deliver up to 200 MW/2 GWh of ESS iron flow energy storage.
ESS storage systems last up to 12 hours and use iron, salt and water.
