Shares in clean power technology firm Libertine (LIB:AIM) made a strong start on their AIM debut, gaining 42.5% on their 20p issue price to 28.5p. The company raised £9 million through the float to provide funding for its commercial and technical teams, expand operating facilities and enhance its tech platform.
The Sheffield-based company specialises in linear generators - a device which produces clean power from renewable fuels but with the flexibility to make clean power from non-renewables.
Its combination of linear electrical machines, controls and developer tools together form a technology platform which Libertine calls intelliGEN.
Libertine is looking to sell this technology to manufacturers of powertrains in vehicles through a licensing model.
The plan being that the intelliGEN platform will operate alongside electric batteries to extend the range of vehicles and address practical and economic barriers to more widespread adoption of electrification - particularly in trucks and buses.
HOW IT WORKS
The company does have some customers, though business remains relatively modest for now with revenue of £3 million projected for 2021.
Libertine CEO and founder Sam Cockerill explained to Shares ahead of the IPO that a linear generator is a bit like a fuel cell in being ‘super high efficiency and very clean but also has some characteristics of conventional power generators, conventional combustion engines in that it’s potentially very durable and has a very good cost position because it’s such a simple device’.
Effectively linear generators take a lot of mechanical components away from a conventional engine and replaces them with electrical machines and software - with Cockerill noting the technology is only just maturing and the need for it has grown thanks to growing electrification.
This technology is used by US firm Mainspring Energy in distributed power generation - where it is used to enable switching between renewable and non-renewable sources of energy.
