Northern Reliability expanding under new ownership

March 27, 2022  |  By Lisa Scagliotti 

Gregg Noble (left), will continue as vice president of sales and development now for KORE Solutions. Formerly Northern Reliability's President and Chief Executive, Jay Bellows (right) takes on the new role as president of KORE Power. Photos courtesy KORE Power

Energy storage firm Northern Reliability Inc. is poised to double its staff and expand its footprint in Waterbury now that it’s been acquired by a battery manufacturing company based in Idaho. 

KORE Power Inc. in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, announced the merger with Northern Reliability on March 23. The move will launch a new combined company called KORE Solutions that will operate as a division of KORE Power, according to a joint corporate statement.

The companies describe the new firm as the first U.S.-based vertically integrated energy storage provider. Terms of the acquisition were not released.

“Building upon NRI’s five decades of storage engineering and project development expertise, we’re adding KORE Power’s battery cells to create KORE Solutions – creating the market’s first all-in-one source for energy storage solutions here in the U.S.,” said Lindsay Gorrill, founder and chief executive officer of KORE Power. 

The move creates a renewable energy player that can offer battery storage and the associated systems to customers looking to store and use energy from any variety of generation models, explained Jay Bellows, who has served as president and chief executive of Northern Reliability. Bellows now becomes president of KORE Power. 

Northern Reliability has evolved over decades in the renewable energy industry to design and install storage for energy generated from any source – “straight from the grid, solar, wind, hydro,” Bellows said. 

Combining battery creation and systems design and installation will position the company “to take advantage of the rapidly expanding energy storage” market, company officials said. 

More workers in more space in Waterbury 

At Northern Reliability's Waterbury's facility, Lucas Comstock [right] and Nick Meerburg work on an energy storage unit. KORE Power has acquired NRI and launched KORE Solutions, the first U.S.-based vertically integrated energy storage solution provider. Photo courtesy KORE Power

The move also will mean expansion of the company’s Vermont workforce. 

Recruiting and hiring has already begun in anticipation of the merger. Bellows said 25 positions will be added in Waterbury, doubling staffing to date. New hires will include electrical, mechanical, software, and controls design engineers, sales managers, procurement staff, production and field technicians, and administrative support personnel.

The expansion means that the company will occupy more space at Pilgrim Park where it already has about 20,000 square feet of office and production space. Bellows said production will grow to 47,000 square feet for a total of 57,000 square feet. The company is located in the commercial center formerly central to Green Mountain Coffee Roasters. Its neighbors are sock manufacturer Darn Tough and Vermont Beer Shepherd craft beer distributors.  

Bellows praised Pilgrim Park management for working with Northern Reliability as it has evolved in Waterbury. He said owner Wayne Lamberton has been supportive of tenants, adjusting leases as companies grow. 

“Waterbury is so lucky to have him,” Bellows said. “He’s been essential to our growth.” 

Mark Pomilio Jr. is economic development director at the nonprofit Revitalizing Waterbury community and economic development organization. He hailed KORE-Northern Reliability news. “I’m excited that with the acquisition, the former president of Northern Reliability will remain in charge of the KORE Solutions side of KORE Power and that it will remain in Pilgrim Park,” he said. “And also that this acquisition will allow them to expand and employ more people.”  

Bellows hinted at additional improvements to the commercial development once the KORE Solutions expansion is complete. For example, he noted, there are opportunities to add rooftop solar and energy storage to move toward a goal of becoming carbon neutral. 

“We’re going to do some cool things in the park,” he said. 

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Expanding on working together 

As KORE Solutions operates as a new division within the company, the KORE Power team will remain focused on producing battery technology for energy storage and electric transportation. 

To support its growing production, KORE Power this year is looking to break ground on a 1 million square foot manufacturing facility in Buckeye, Arizona. Its capability will support up to 12 gigawatt hours of lithium-ion battery cell production for the U.S. supply chain, the company said. 

The Vermont operation brings system design, engineering, construction and monitoring capabilities to the equation. 

Founded in 1974 as Northern Power Systems, Northern Reliability traces its roots as one of the nation’s earliest renewable energy developers. “Our team has deployed over 1,000 storage projects, many of which have been operating longer than our competitors have been in business,” Bellows said. 

Northern Reliability has established energy storage facilities across the U.S. and on every continent including Antarctica. The company has carved its niche in designing storage systems including working with customers to ensure ongoing monitoring and maintenance once systems are in place.  

Just a couple of years ago, KORE Power and Northern Reliability began their relationship working on an innovative joint venture called Nomad Transportable Power Systems to build utility-scale mobile energy storage systems. 

Jay Bellows of Waterbury now takes on the new role of president of KORE Power after the company's acquisition of Northern Reliability where Bellows was president and CEO. Photo courtesy KORE Power

“The future of power storage is mobile,” Bellows told the trade journal Solar Power World when NOMAD launched in 2021. 

“We identified a market need years ago for transportable storage systems to deliver energy solutions to customers more quickly and at a lower cost of entry,” Bellows said. “It took us an incredible amount of time and research to find a battery partner willing and technically able to think outside the fixed site mindset. Throughout the many months the two companies worked feverishly together to solve the numerous engineering challenges associated with mobile storage, it was clear we shared a similar culture, dedication to the utility and renewable sectors, and an outlook to successfully deploy innovative solutions. Forming NOMAD was the next logical step.”  

Bellows said the sale of Northern Reliability to KORE was particularly attractive because unlike many battery manufacturers in the world, KORE is based in the United States. “It was very important to us as a company to tie ourselves to a U.S. battery manufacturer,” Bellows said. 

With increasing concerns about global cyber threats to infrastructure such as the power grid and energy systems, Bellows said federal regulators are looking to tighten requirements regarding components used in the industry to prefer domestically produced systems over those with foreign-sourced equipment.