UniEnergy Technologies (UET) has named Blake Frye as its Senior Vice President of Global Sales. With over 20 years of experience delivering high-value energy storage projects to customers, Frye will drive global sales at UET to deliver even greater value from UET's breakthrough vanadium flow energy storage systems.
With global procurements of flow batteries over one gigawatt-hour (GWh), the industry clearly recognizes that flow batteries can competitively deliver the rugged flexibility demanded by modern grid economics. UET is the leading flow battery company in the U.S. and Europe, with over 80MWh of containerized energy storage solutions deployed, ordered, or awarded by customers.
Mr. Frye will bring his successful track record of leading sales and business development efforts at Saft and Energizer to accelerate UET's sales in the fast growing grid-scale sector of the energy storage industry. Frye's broad industry experience and deep technical expertise makes him uniquely qualified to provide value to customers, end-users, and channel partners, as well as to advise on the advantages of flow batteries compared with other technologies.
Prior to joining UET, Frye was Vice President of Sales for Saft America where he led the creation and growth of its energy storage business. He closed multiple large-scale contracts with utilities, renewable developers, transit authorities, and the U.S. Department of Defense, with projects located in California, Hawaii, the Northeastern U.S., Alaska, Arizona, Canada, Bolivia, Mexico, and the Caribbean basin. Earlier in his 15-year career at Saft, Frye managed marketing, business development, and communications for two Saft international business units selling lithium and nickel metal hydride batteries with over $400 million in annual revenues. In addition, Frye has extensive technical expertise from his work at Energizer, where he was responsible for product development including novel technologies for new rechargeable battery products.
Frye holds three U.S. Patents, and his team was recognized by the Energy Storage Association in 2015 with the Brad Roberts Outstanding Industry Achievement Award. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in chemistry from the University of Florida.
"After many years of direct interactions with customers, it is clear the advanced vanadium flow batteries developed at UET and now deployed at megawatt-scale are an industry game-changer," said Frye. "The flexibility, reliability, safety, and long-life of the UET solutions directly address the needs and challenges of customers. Customers are looking for safe, plug-and-play, fully containerized systems that provide the full range of power and energy applications without degradation or duty cycle limitations."
Rick Winter, UET's President and Chief Operating Officer, stated: "The energy storage industry is growing at a rapid pace, especially with the accelerating deployment of flow batteries. Blake's wealth of experience in global sales, as well as his expertise in meeting customers' needs and depth of knowledge of the industry, are critical to our company's growth." Winter concluded: "UET's fade-free flow batteries are the right technology to capture a sizable share of the accelerating market for long duration energy storage."
About UET
UET produces integrated advanced vanadium flow battery storage solutions for savings, stability, and security in utility, independent power producer, microgrid, and commercial & industrial applications.
UET's breakthrough products – the 500kW/2MWh Uni.System™ and the 100kW/500kWh ReFlex™ – are the result of US innovation and close collaboration with affiliated companies in China for high-precision, volume manufacture. UET's core technology is a next generation vanadium electrolyte developed at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) with the support of the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Electricity. UET has improved the electrolyte further and patented those improvements in addition to innovations in system integration and other technology.
Globally, only UET has MW-scale, fully containerized flow battery systems deployed and operating in the field. These deployments include Avista Utilities' Turner Energy Storage Project, which is the largest containerized flow battery in the world, providing frequency and voltage regulation, renewable integration, peak shaving, ramping, demand charge reduction, islanding, black start, and microgrid support.
UET's customers consistently cite the value of fade-free performance, unrestricted duty cycle, and 20-year life as key deciders in selecting UET over competitors. Other considerations include rapid deployment, compact footprint, safety, and nearly 100 percent recyclability.
UET headquarters and 60,000 square foot manufacturing facility are located in Mukilteo, Washington, in the Seattle metropolitan area.