HANCOCK COUNTY — Two weeks after adding a Russian business mogul to its board, Ener1 has strengthened its ties to Russia through an agreement to provide smart grid technologies for a massive upgrade of Russia’s aging electrical grid. 

    Ener1 announced Thursday it has signed a memorandum of understanding with Russia’s Federal Grid Company, which is 78-percent owned by the Russian government. 

    Ener1 manufactures lithiumion battery systems for automotive and utility grid applications. It is the parent company of EnerDel, which is ramping up manufacturing at its new facility in Mt. Comfort and had already planned to hire hundreds more workers before this latest agreement. 

    “Compared to any of the alternatives, grid storage is a quick, highly cost effective way to solve reliability and power quality challenges on any network, and especially one that is already operating at its limit,” Ener1 CEO Charles Gassenheimer said in a news release. “Russia and other emerging markets have the opportunity to leapfrog the kind of systems that exist elsewhere because the need for innovative solutions is so acute, and their existing grids are already stretched thin. The ability to store energy to use where and when it’s needed is a big part of that.” 

    Ener1 has been working on projects in Japan involving energy storage applications. Gassenheimer announced two weeks ago that the company has been monitoring high-level discussions between the U.S. and Russian governments about building smart grids in Russia with American technologies. 

    Cooperation between American and Russian companies on energy efficiency and smart grid development is a focus of the Presidential Working Group formed last year by President Barack Obama and President Dmitry Medvedev, according to Thursday’s news release. 

    FGC owns nearly 75,000 miles of transmission lines across Russia’s nine time zones. It previously announced plans to invest about $15 billion through 2012 to modernize the nation’s electrical transmission infrastructure. FGC estimates smart grid technologies in Russia will result in energy savings of more than $1.6 billion annually, according to the release. 

    Thursday’s announcement came at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, where Gassenheimer was slated to speak. This year’s forum highlights the Russian government’s new emphasis on technological innovation as the key to modernizing the nation’s economy. 

    With a population of nearly 139 million, Russia is the world’s ninth-largest nation. It covers an area of more than 17 million square miles and is about 1.8 times the size of the U.S., according to the CIA’s World Factbook. 

    Russia represents the world’s fourth largest utility market – a market that’s facing record demand on an aging grid, according to the Ener1 news release. 

    To fund its massive infrastructure upgrade, FGC received authority from the Russian government to increase the prices it charges electricity generators by 51 percent, according to the release. 

    Overall investment in Russia’s electricity sector has increased more than eight-fold since 2005, according to the release, which cites the Russian Ministry of Energy. Also, the Russian ministry predicts the country will spend $20 billion this year alone to upgrade its generating and transmission systems. 

    Earlier this month, Ener1 added 50-year-old Russian industrialist Boris Zingarevich to its board as Ener1 received a $65 million financial boost from Ener1 Group, a privately held group established by Zingarevich.
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