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Affordable Battery Technology for Industrial Energy: Tapping into the Multitrillion-Dollar Market Opportunity

The Future of Battery Technology: Affordable Solutions for Industrial Energy

The Expanding Market for Batteries

The market for vehicle and home batteries is growing rapidly, but there is another battery opportunity that is just emerging.

Meeting the Energy Needs of Giant Factories

Giant factories that produce textiles, food, chemicals, and cement require immense amounts of energy. While wind and solar power can be used, their intermittent nature and distance from the factories make them less reliable. This creates the need for large and expensive batteries.

New Battery Technology for Affordability

Companies like Form Energy, AtmosZero, and Antora Energy are addressing this challenge by developing more affordable battery technology.

Antora Energy, a Silicon Valley-based startup, has created a new class of battery known as a thermal battery. Instead of storing energy as electrochemical bonds, it stores energy as heat. This innovative approach allows for significantly lower costs.

How Thermal Batteries Work

In the thermal battery system, electricity generated from wind and solar sources is passed through coils to heat solid, well-insulated blocks of carbon to temperatures exceeding 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit. These blocks store a tremendous amount of energy and can be transported to factories in a battery module. Antora Energy’s thermal batteries are currently being tested at an electric company in Fresno, California.

Affordability and Market Potential

While the cost of producing thermal batteries is still relatively high, Antora Energy believes that in the long term, they can be significantly cheaper than conventional lithium-ion batteries. This makes them a viable solution for clean energy and climate-conscious investors.

Christina Karapataki, representing Breakthrough Energy Ventures, which was founded by Bill Gates, highlights the multitrillion-dollar market opportunity that thermal batteries can address. She sees the potential to meet 40% of all industrial energy needs. Antora Energy stands out as one of the companies ready to quickly scale and meet the demands of the sector.

A Growing Field of Participants

In recent years, the number of thermal energy storage companies utilizing materials like sand, rock, brick, or ceramics to store energy as heat has increased. Antora Energy, having raised $80 million to date, is backed by prominent investors such as Breakthrough Energy, Lowercarbon Capital, Shell Ventures, BHP Ventures, Grok Ventures, and Trust Ventures.

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Derrick Santistevan
Derrick Santistevan
Derrick is the Researcher at World Weekly News. He tries to find the latest things going around in our world and share it with our readers.

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