Startups helping us transition to renewable energies (Volume 1)
Short Note
Cleantech startups come in many shapes and colors, from differing technology to differing market targets, with all having the goal of “creating a cleaner world” in mind. Being a product developer in this field, specifically developing advanced batteries for grid storage energy applications, I have decided to do my own mini series of the varying startups/technology in this field.
To start the mini series I will be evaluating Airthium, a startup focused on developing energy storage solutions on the grid level using compressed/heated air.
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Most of the energy we use in the world is generated from non-reusable sources of energy such as burning coal, oil, or natural gas.
Eventually this will be a problem because the supply of these materials will go down. Not to mention the environmental consequences the usage of these materials leads to.
To counteract this problem, many people have become interested in alternative renewable sources of energy such as solar, thermal and wind.
While those technologies are renewable, they all have the problem of being intermittent, as in, we can’t use them all day.
Therefore companies that attempt to solve this problem by creating “energy storage” devices to store excess energy during optimal generation hours are needed to shift to this “greener” world we desire.
Thats where many Clean Tech companies come into play using all sorts of technologies — with batteries being the major one.
Airthium wants to take a different approach. They want to compress and heat hydrogen to store energy during the day time, and decompress the gas during the night as a source of energy.
Typically in this field, key metrics include roundtrip efficiency (energy loss), cycle life (how long can you use the equipment), as well as cost per kWh of energy stored, and according to their website, their specifications seem to be pretty good:
Aside from their technology specifications, their founding team seems to have a solid background. Founding members include PhD/scientist Andrei Klochko, sales expert Franck Lahaye, and business man Dmitri Botvitch.
Because of this, they have been accepted into one of the most prestigious accelerators — Y Combinator — as well as receiving over 120k in funding.
Personally, however, I am a bit skeptical about this startup because of the many questions that remain unanswered. How much of their equipment have they demonstrated to work above a pilot scale? Do they have significant pilot data? Did they really test to see if their equipment works for longer than 25 years? Is the 70% efficiency applicable to all operating conditions — considering that heat losses are the greatest sources of inefficiency, which their system seems to try to fight against, it seems a bit high? And what is the 120k in funding for? Is it for more product development or is it for marketing? Overall, while this technology seems interesting, there are too many questions to be asked for me to be a wholehearted advocate for this technology.
