Energy Storage News

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MIT professor Yet-Ming Chiang has launched his latest storage bet, a flow battery startup designed to make renewable energy directly competitive with fossil fuels (see “24M’s Batteries Could Better Harness Wind and Solar Power”). The scale of the company's ambition—and challenge—is telegraphed in the name: Baseload Renewables. The Cambridge, Massachusetts-based startup's stated mission is to produce batteries that are capable of producing reliable grid power from renewable sources around the clock, and cost at least five times less than where lithium-ion batteries are likely to plateau.

That’s approaching the price point where the idea of “seasonal storage” becomes economically feasible—meaning arrays of these batteries could store enough solar power during times of excess generation through the summer to continue meeting regional demand through the long, cloudy winter, Chiang says. Baseload is housed at the Engine, MIT's new accelerator, which recently provided the company nearly $2 million in funding (see “Developing a Tough, Time-Consuming Technology? This Investor Is Interested”). Baseload isn't providing many technical details at this stage, but the key to its low cost is relying on sulfur. That's because the material is very abundant and energy-dense, Chiang says. Indeed, it's a waste product of oil and gas production that costs as little as 10 cents per kilogram.

Serial Battery Entrepreneur’s New Venture Tackles Clean Energy’s Biggest Problem - MIT Technology Review