To achieve net carbon neutrality, the world's electricity grids will need to deploy 85 … Contact online >>
To achieve net carbon neutrality, the world''s electricity grids will need to deploy 85
Malta''s innovative thermo-electric energy storage system represents a flexible, low
Malta bolsters its core team with a world-class syndicate of investors and energy
"Malta''s technology provides a ''like-for-like'' replacement for fossil fuel plants in terms
Malta''s breakthrough Thermo-Electric Energy Storage technology is flexible,
Malta develops, implements, and operates an innovative, utility-scale Pumped Heat
Malta converts electricity to thermal energy and back again, theoretically unlocking up to 200 hours’ worth of energy storage.
Maltahasraised a $50 million Series B round to bring its super-long-duration energy storage to market, the company said Wednesday.
The startupspun out of Google parent company Alphabet''s moonshot factory, X, in 2018. Many startups tackling energy storage breakthroughs have looked to batteries and other electrochemical devices. Malta turned instead to thermal energy: It uses grid power to compress air for storagein hot molten salts and cold antifreeze liquid. A heat engine later converts the energy back to electricity for consumption. This apparatus, in theory, allows for storing power economically on much longer timescales than isfeasible with the lithium-ion batteries prevalent today.
The funding news came after an extreme winter storm blacked out the Texas grid for days on end,highlighting the value of power sources that can ride through multiday shortages of natural gas or renewable generation.
Swiss energy firm Proman led the Series B, joined by previous investors Alfa Laval and Bill Gates-backed Breakthrough Energy Ventures, which led Malta''s$26 million Series A round in 2018.Dustin Moskovitz, co-founder of Facebook and Asana, also participated.
"The commercialization process is moving along nicely," VP of Commercialization Ty Jagerson said in a Tuesdayinterview. "Anyone looking at 4 hours [of energy storage] is starting to look 8 to 10. The market is transitioning rapidly."
Malta has already submitted bids for storage solicitations, he added, and plans to have its first commercial project online in 2024 or 2025. That timeline is driven in part by the scale of the enterprise.Malta''s core plant design would charge at a rate of 185 megawatts and will be able todischarge at 100 megawatts for up to 10 hours. This industrial facility would be designed to operate for 30 years.
The gap between power in and power out reflects heatlosses in the conversion process, but over the last few years, the company identified a commercial use for that inefficiency: industrial heat. Decarbonization of industry will drive numerous uses for carbon-free, 100-degree-Celsius heat on demand. It''s no accident that investor Alfa Laval is a leading supplier of heat exchange technology.
In the first cleantech investment bubble a decade ago, venture capitalists (including Gates) bet on startups that proposed novel hardware and spent serious cash building factories for their exotic devices. Those bets largely failed.
These days, a more fashionable tack is to assemble proven technologies with mature supply chains and put them to new use.
“Malta’s innovative application of well-established technologies and materialscould accelerate the rollout of long-duration storage to support the transition to fully dispatchable renewable energy,” Moskovitz, a founding member of Breakthrough Energy Ventures,said in a prepared statement.
Another challenge is convincing customers that a young technology company can stand behind its technology, or even get it installed. That''s where strategic partners like Alfa Laval and Proman come in. The latter firm handles development and project management. If Proman becomes convinced ofMalta''s effectiveness, it could lend credibility to the novel technology.
Breakthrough Energy Ventureshas placed other bets on rival long-duration energy storagetechnologies, such as Form Energy. That Cambridge-based startupsimilarly tackles storage for days on end but does so with a stealthy"aqueous air" electrochemical design.
These companies anticipate a market that does not yet exist. Utilities are still getting comfortable with lithium-ion batteries capable of storing 4 hours'' worth of electricity, enough to store solar production for use in the evening, for instance. Long-duration storage entrepreneurs anticipate a future state when rapid uptake of wind and solar creates surpluses that could be cheaply stored and called upon when the sun and wind stop producing.
Commercial deployments are coming into view. Form Energy closed a deal with Minnesota utility Great River Energy to install a 1-megawatt/150-megawatt-hour pilot project in 2023. Highview Power, which stores electricity via liquefied air, is constructing a commercial-scale plant near Manchester, U.K. That company closed a $70 million growth capital round earlier this year.
Malta, like Form, has begun working with utilities to model how its long-duration storage might perform in their systems since the technology does not exist in legacy grid-planning systems. Jagerson said the emerging long-duration storage ecosystem stands to benefit from having multiple capable contenders emerge.
"Utilities want to see that there''s a viable sector out there," Jagerson said. "We hope that there''s a robust cadre of other long-duration storage companies like us that survive and thrive."
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These days there is a need to opt for sustainable energy storage. Wind and solar energy are inexpensive, abundant, and clean but then they are not reliable. It is so because the wind doesn''t always blow, and the Sun doesn''t always shine. The natural resources fluctuate and are unpredictable. Therefore the humungous capital investment made to capitalize on them remains to sit idle or are forced to be used in a way that causes damage to them and shortens their life.
Energy as and when produced by solar panels, wind turbines, and fossil plants are stored by a key pain point for grid operators to be used later. Malta has brought a breakthrough solution whereby it mitigates wind and solar curtailment. It works effectively to match the generation and demand of energy and doing away with the bottleneck that erupts in the distribution and transmission systems.
Malta has developed a system that is made of conventional components and ample of raw materials like steel, air, salt, and commodity liquids. The technology is based on using the already present manufacturing and construction ecosystems in the power, oil, and gas industries. This has a dual benefits in terms of reducing the costs and risks. The technology has been evolved after a lot of research to be implemented, and it is not a hit and trial project to be tested.
The Malta energy system works by taking the electricity, converting, and storing it in the form of heat. That is converted back to electricity and redistributed in the electric grid. When it is in the charge mode, the system works as the heat pump, storing the electricity as heat in the molten salt. While in the discharge mode, the system operates as a heat engine that uses the stored heat to produce electricity.
Following key features that make Malta energy system a pioneer in the field of sustainable energy storage:
Alphabet''s Malta''s system, energy is stored as thermal energy, in the form of hot and cold. Nobel Prize-winning Stanford physics professor Robert Laughlin developed the system. He designed a theoretical system that stores electricity for days or even weeks until required. In his theory, it is explained about the system and the math behind it. He showed how all the components should work together.
X decided to take the theory and build all individual components and understand the overall system''s worth in the present world, at a competitive price. It took two years to build CAD drawings, running extensive computer stimulation’s, and 3D printing lots of parts. After this step, the real machinery was built, with exact angle of each blade in a turbine and the strength and thickness of the material used. It was then that team X realized that the system has essential features that make it suitable for being used in the environment.
Energy storage through Malta will prove to be a solution for an electrical grid that is renewable, intermittent generation. Efforts are being made to make collaboration with investors and companies to develop the cutting edge technology. In future issues related to the availability of clean and reliable energy are bound to increase. With the natural renewable sources of energy comes the fear of them being unreliable.
Malta Inc, developer of a grid-scale electro-thermal energy storage technology, has closed a Series B funding round, raising US$50 million from investors that include Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz.
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