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.
A large-scale vanadium redox flow battery (VRFB) demonstration project in California which has been providing grid services on a commercial basis will now also trial the use of the technology for microgrid applications.
The lion’s share of new funding announced this week to help scale-up potentially disruptive technologies by the Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy (ARPA-E) of the US government Department of Energy (DOE) will go to battery and smart grid technologies.
‘Liquid metal’ battery technology developed as a potential low-cost competitor for lithium-ion looks set to be used at a data centre under development near Reno, Nevada.
While lithium-ion continues to dominate big project announcements worldwide, three providers of long-duration non-lithium battery technologies have claimed various milestones in commercialisation.
Nilar, a Sweden-headquartered producer of nickel metal hydride chemistry batteries aimed to compete with lithium-ion and lead acid, will receive €47 million (US$55.45 million) in funding from the European Investment Bank (EIB).
Whatever technology or strategy announcements come from Tesla’s Battery Day, speculation that the company will reduce purchases of battery cells from partners as a consequence is incorrect, CEO Elon Musk has said.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said that a new recycling facility for lithium-ion batteries helps create quality jobs and support clean energy as the state “builds back stronger” from the COVID-19 crisis.
Update 1 September 2020: EnerVenue CEO Jorg Heinemann got in touch with Energy-Storage.news post-publication of this story to give a few extra pieces of detail on the company and its commercialisation plans for the metal-hydrogen batteries.
