Shell has reportedly completed the sale of sonnen to Tiven after searching for a buyer for nearly three years
The transaction is expected to result in a loss of several hundred million euros for Shell
The new owner, investment firm Tiven, is planning to restructure the business before reselling it
Global oil and energy giant Shell plc has offloaded German residential energy storage manufacturer and supplier sonnen, three years after it put it on the block.
While the transaction does not appear to have been announced through a regulatory filing, German business newspaper Handelsblatt said the company confirmed the sale of sonnen to Tiven. The buyer is an investment firm associated with Gert Purkert, the Co-Founder and Partner of Aurelius.
Shell acquired a 100% stake in sonnen in 2019 after making an initial investment in 2018, as part of its strategy to expand its residential energy storage and energy services business. Shell reportedly paid around €500 million for the transaction. In 2023, it started looking for buyers for the company.
Shell reportedly has not made much money from its sonnen sale. The German company has been incurring losses, losing revenues from €263.5 million in 2023 to €78.4 million in 2024. The sale is expected to result in a loss of several hundred million euros for the British energy group. Tiven plans to restructure sonnen before starting the resale process.
For Shell, this divestment follows similar clean energy offloading deals signed in recent months, including the sale of Sprng Energy with its 5 GW renewable energy portfolio to Aditya Birla Renewables (see Shell Sells Sprng Energy To Aditya Birla In $1.8B Deal).
In August 2026, Shell sold its 4 GW European onshore renewables business to TotalEnergies while selling a partial sale of its developed renewable energy assets to KKR (see TotalEnergies To Acquire Shell’s 4 GW Europe Renewables Portfolio).
The British group is executing its strategy of ‘divesting non-core assets and investing in higher-quality growth opportunities’, it stated while announcing Q2 2026 financial results.
German storage companies are facing financial pressure as falling battery prices, intensifying competition from lower-cost Asian suppliers and high European production costs squeeze margins, despite continued demand for energy storage.
Recently, VARTA AG, the parent company of VARTA Storage GmbH, filed for insolvency, with the Stuttgart Local Court appointing a provisional insolvency administrator. The company cited deteriorating market conditions, weaker demand, negative exchange-rate effects, and the loss of a key customer as factors behind the filing, even as it continues to view the energy-storage market as a future-oriented business.
Previously, sonnen’s German rooftop solar PV and storage systems installer subsidiary, Enersol, shut down operations citing a lack of demand for solar and storage in Germany (see Yet Another German Solar Company Going Down).
