Leadership
Our leadership contributes 70 years of combined experience in clean energy and battery energy storage development and investment. The leadership team is supported by engineering, analytical, and project development members who add value through energy project design and engineering skills, financial modelling, corporate and project finance, and business and project development. Many are seasoned project managers with a focus on execution and delivery. Based out of Johannesburg, South Africa, we cover multiple international markets in local languages, including English, French and Portuguese.
Mikhail Nikomarov
Chief Executive Officer
Mikhail Nikomarov is an entrepreneur and African energy expert, who has worked on strategic and operational energy issues across four continents, including eight African countries.
He holds an MBA from INSEAD (France), an Economics Diploma from the London School of Economics (UK) and two B.A. degrees in History and in Economics from the University of Massachusetts (USA).
Prior to founding Bushveld Energy, Mikhail spent 6½ years with McKinsey & Company in Moscow and Johannesburg, advising national governments, utilities and manufacturers on growth strategy and policy, and leading operational turnarounds in the power sector.
Neo Kgatuke
Business Development Manager
Neo Kgatuke has been active in the mining, engineering, and projects space for over 18 years.
With a huge success in various transactions, Neo successfully developed a portfolio in the mining industry, designing and commissioning various projects globally.
He now brings his wealth of business development, mining, engineering, and projects experience to develop the Bushveld Energy business.
He holds an MBA from the Graduate School of Business at the University of Cape Town (South Africa) and an engineering honours degree from the University of Cape Town.
Michael Niszl
Project Implementation Manager
Michael Niszl is an energy storage technical advisor who previously worked at Eskom's research, testing and development centre – focusing his efforts on their large-scale energy storage testing facility.
His expertise extends across a large variety of energy storage technologies, from DC block level to full system integration.
He holds a BIng degree in electrical and electronic engineering from the University of Johannesburg and is currently registered with ECSA as a candidate engineer.
Partnering
As part of Bushveld Minerals' strategy of partnering with vanadium redox flow battery (VRFB) original equipment manufacturers (OEM), which includes the supply of vanadium and electrolyte, deployments, and investment, the company has made certain strategic equity investments and entered into joint venture agreements across the vanadium and energy storage value chain.
Bushveld Minerals, together with a consortium, have acquired Austria-based CellCube. CellCube is a leader among VRFB peers, with more than 20 years of development and production experience, and over 130 systems / 23 MWh deployed.
Also, in this space, Bushveld Minerals and Invinity Energy Systems, have formed a special-purpose company named Vanadium Electrolyte Rental Limited to provide a vanadium electrolyte rental option to Invinity’s customers.
CellCube is a vanadium redox flow Battery (VRFB) developer and manufacturer.
The company specialises in the planning, development and turnkey construction of utility-scale projects worldwide. It is one of the world’s first and largest developers, manufacturers and distributors of vanadium redox flow batteries.
Bushveld Energy has an indirect interest in CellCube of 25,25%, through VRFB Holdings Limited, which owns 50% interest in Enerox Holdings Limited. Enerox Holdings Limited holds a 100% interest in CellCube.
With more than 136 installations across five continents, CellCube has substantial industry and operational experience. The technology has proven to deliver long-lasting energy storage (now rated for 30 years) and infrastructure for deployment in a wide range of applications, including:
- Grid Storage & Micro Grids
- Storage Collocated with Renewables, such as Solar & Wind
- Time Shift
- Diesel Power Replacement
- Commercial & Industrial Solutions, such as Farming
- Electrical Vehicle Charging Stations
- Industrial Plants
- Office Buildings
- Emergency Power Sources
CellCube’s Recent Developments:
- CellCube has signed a strategic manufacturing co-operation agreement with North Harbour Clean Energy (Pty) Ltd. to build an assembly and manufacturing line in Eastern Australia to meet demand for long-duration energy storage in the national electricity market. The first project executed by the partnership will be developing the continent’s largest VRFB, which will generate 4 MW / 16 MWh, based on CellCube’s proprietary technology.
- Enerox and G&W Electric have signed a strategic partnership to offer resilience and cost savings to the rapidly expanding micro-grid market in North America. The partnership was initiated through G&W Electric’s construction of its own state-of-the-art micro-grid located in Bolingbrook, Illinois, USA with solar energy generation coupled to CellCube’s latest battery technology.
Collaborations
The Industrial Development Corporation is a South African development funding institution (DFI) contributing to the creation of balanced, sustainable economic growth in South Africa. Since 2016, Bushveld Energy and the IDC have been cooperating on downstream beneficiation of vanadium in South Africa in the new industry of energy storage.
The South African Energy Storage Association aims to guide policy to allow for the accessibility of storage projects and advocates and advances the energy storage industry to create a more resilient, accessible, efficient, sustainable, and affordable energy system in Africa. Counting over 40 local and international members, SAESA is also a member of the South Africa Renewable Energy Council (SAREC) and a founding member of the World Bank Group’s Energy Storage Partnership (ESP). Bushveld Energy is a founding member of SAESA.
Bushveld Energy continues to collaborate with Eskom around the use of VRFB’s for long duration storage applications. Bushveld Energy has previously provided Eskom with a VRFB for testing at the Eskom Research Testing & Development centre, and is now looking to deploy larger commercial VRFB’s within Eskom’s planned BESS procurement programmes.
At present, there are over twenty original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) of vanadium redox flow batteries (VRFBs), with varying product offerings. Bushveld Energy has built up partnerships with VRFB OEMs spanning the supply of vanadium and electrolyte, deployment of VRFBs and investment into OEMs.
Vanitec is the global, non-profit association of vanadium producers. Bushveld Energy is a Vanitec member through the Bushveld Minerals group and currently chairs Vanitec’s Energy Storage Committee (ESC).