July 23, 2021
Form Energy finally lifted the veil of secrecy over its technology that purports to store clean electricity for days on end.
The startup revealed Thursday that it is building iron-air batteries, a technology that has been studied for decades but never commercialized for grid storage. The announcement coincided with a profile in the
Wall Street Journal and a $200 million Series D raise led by global steel and mining giant ArcelorMittal.
“We felt that we had made enough progress that it was relevant to talk about,” Form CEO Mateo Jaramillo told Canary Media Thursday.
The company had filed for the patents it needed to secure its intellectual property, he added. And when news broke that a steel company, which sources massive amounts of iron, was taking a stake in Form, some people probably could have connected the dots.
DOE/Argonne National Laboratory
Form Energy sprang out of JCESR research on the air-breathing sulfur battery. (Credit: Image courtesy of JCESR.)
A new era of energy provided by renewables may be close at hand, thanks to research begun at the Joint Center for Energy Storage Research (JCESR), a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Energy Innovation Hub led by DOE s Argonne National Laboratory, and continued at spinoff company Form Energy.
The challenge JCESR addressed is long duration storage stabilizing a renewable grid against several consecutive days of calm or overcast days when wind and solar generation is absent or severely limited. Today s lithium-ion batteries can discharge at full power for 4-6 hours, enough to stabilize against most intra-day variations due to passing clouds or fluctuating winds, or to extend solar electricity a few hours past sunset to serve the evening demand peak. A full day or consecutive days of windless or overcast weather is stabilized by natural gas p
Reshaping the future of the electric grid through low-cost, long-duration discharge batteries
Credit: Courtesy of JCESR
Form Energy sprang out of JCESR research on the air-breathing sulfur battery.
A new era of energy provided by renewables may be close at hand, thanks to research begun at the Joint Center for Energy Storage Research (JCESR), a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Energy Innovation Hub led by DOE’s Argonne National Laboratory, and continued at spinoff company Form Energy.
The challenge JCESR addressed is long duration storage stabilizing a renewable grid against several consecutive days of calm or overcast days when wind and solar generation is absent or severely limited. Today’s lithium-ion batteries can discharge at full power for 4-6 hours, enough to stabilize against most intra-day variations due to passing clouds or fluctuating winds, or to extend solar electricity a few hours past sunset to serve the evening demand peak. A full day or consecutive days of w