Marubeni signs Asia deal for advanced carbon storage materials

A solar farm constructed by Marubeni in its home territory of Japan. Image: Marubeni.
Japan-headquartered trading company Marubeni Corporation has entered into an agreement with EnerG2 to secure exclusive Asia distribution rights to the Seattle-based manufacturer’s advanced carbon materials, intended for energy storage devices.

Marubeni, which is involved in a number of trading areas including renewables and other forms of energy, has been marketing EnerG2’s products since 2011 and says it decided to take the latest step following positive feedback from a number of stakeholders including battery manufacturers. Neither company has specified how far the deal will go towards work in the renewable energy storage system sector. The latest deal covers sales in territories including China, Japan, Taiwan, Malaysia and Korea.

EnerG2’s carbon materials are applicable to various types of energy storage systems as they are used for high-end and high-performance rechargeable lead-acid batteries, electric double layer capacitors (EDLCs), and lithium-ion batteries. The company has patented Carbon Technology Platform that it says enables EnerG2 to design and manufacture customized carbon and silicon-carbon nano-composite materials. EnerG2 claims that by doing so it has solved the most challenging energy storage requirements while maintaining a flexible, low-cost manufacturing process.

Marubeni recently completed the development of Japan’s current largest solar plant, with 82MW generation capacity, although larger projects are already in the works. Since June 2014, Marubeni has been working to enter the PV solar markets for residential and commercial application.

Last week EnerG2 announced its partnership with chemical company BASF, which agreed to provide funding, technological expertise, and marketing assistance to help improve EnerG2’s production and broaden its global presence. The deal covers the improvement and scaling up in production of EnerG2’s carbon materials for use in supercapacitor electrodes and as a performance additive in start-stop lead acid batteries.