Stephen Coughlin, CEO of Fluence since the energy storage technology provider jointly owned by AES and Siemens was launched in 2018 will step down at the beginning of May.

Fluence representatives emailed Energy-Storage.news yesterday with the announcement that Coughlin will make way for new CEO Manuel Perez Dubuc, who has been on the company’s Board of Directors himself since 2018.

Fluence said this existing relationship between Dubuc and Coughlin, as well as with parent company board members “ensures a smooth transition” for the technology provider, which officially launched in January 2018 after starting up mid-2017 with an initial 485MW project pipeline and now has 1.7GW in delivered and awarded projects in 21 different countries.

“The stakes are incredibly high to transform the way we power our world, adding more renewables together with energy storage to provide clean generation, flexibility and resilience to power networks everywhere,” Dubuc said.

“This is a pivotal time for Fluence, our customers and the future of our industry,” Dubuc, whose most recent roles include positions on the Board of Directors at AES developer subsidiaries AES Distributed Energy and SPower.

Outgoing CEO Stephen Coughling described his successor as “a brilliant leader with deep experience running high-growth businesses and developing strong partnerships in the energy industry in nearly every global region”.

“He is also a progressive and pioneering executive with a track record of designing and executing ambitious plans to drive the global transition to clean, sustainable, and flexible energy infrastructure,” Coughlin said, adding that Dubuc had been “selected to execute on the expansion and maturation of the company”.