United States startup to shake up battery market with metal hydrogen tech

• EnerVenue introduced with $12 million in seed funding, flaunting advantages over lithium-ion in efficiency, price, operability in severe weather condition, and years of use in the aerospace sector.

In what has actually ended up being the summer of battery storage space, a new chemistry has entered the fray, with battery startup EnerVenue releasing this week with $12 million in seed funding.

The firm is betting on the success of metal hydrogen batteries, particularly nickel-hydrogen batteries. This chemistry has actually proven to be an extremely powerful energy storage innovation for the aerospace market for rather some time, however was always held back from better industrial success as a result of its high rate.

According to Dr. Yi Cui, chief innovation consultant for EnerVenue, the firm has been able to attain commercialization through "a development affordable price using brand-new inexpensive materials." It had the ability to do this by collaborating with EEnotech, a start-up that breeds and accelerates nanotechnology-driven remedies to, to name a few things, grid-scale energy storage space.

That's the key with the firm: going into the storage market particularly with metal-hydrogen batteries developed for large-scale renewable as well as storage applications.

Unlike lithium-ion, the firm asserts that metal-hydrogen batteries master problems of extreme warmth and extreme cold. As a result of this, the battery features no threat of fire or thermal runaway as well as additionally consists of no hazardous materials. This makes it recyclable, which is a big idea in its support, as the recycling of materials is just mosting likely to grow in relevance as the renewable resource sector develops.

EnerVenue asserts that the business's batteries have a greater than 30-year life expectancy, can undergo more than 30,000 cycles without experiencing destruction. They provide extraordinary overcharge, overdischarge, and deep-cycle abilities. The business likewise asserts prices per kilowatt-hour are as reduced as a dime, as well as capital expenditure prices that beat lithium-ion.

EnerVenue is aiming to develop big renewables-plus-storage applications, for utilities and also large business applications. To prove the capacity of its batteries to excel in all environments, the business is especially concentrated on hot desert atmospheres, and wind farms and also microgrids in difficult-to-reach locations.