The US energy storage startup Antora is manufacturing thermophotovoltaic “heat batteries” that store renewable energy for transfer into electricity or heat, capable of powering industrial operations.
Molten salt has long been positioned as the workhorse of high temperature thermal storage. Its story began with research in the 1980s and early deployment in Spanish parabolic trough plants in the 2000s. The technology was appealing on paper. A mixture of sodium and potassium nitrate has a high heat … [continued]
Boston startup re-invents millennia-old firebricks for 21st century renewable energy storage and industrial decarbonization.
A primer on refrigerants and their impacts on climate change. Refrigerants are everywhere. They’re in our air conditioners and heat pumps, in our fridges — even in our cars! Yet, despite this ubiquity, refrigerants are an oft-neglected subject within electrification strategies despite their major contribution to the greenhouse effect. Perhaps … [continued]
Recently I sat down with Laurent Segalen and Gerard Reid, European cleantech investors, on their podcast Redefining Energy to talk about Breakthrough Energy Venture’s big misses. This followed our conversation about the cognitive biases of the billionaires such as Bill Gates which have persisted due to a bubble of confirmation … [continued]
Harvest Thermal is a company focused on electrifying home heating and hot water systems with its thermal storage heat pump technology. The system reduces homeowners’ energy costs and carbon emissions by shifting heat production to off-peak hours and optimizing energy use through stratified thermal storage and data-driven controls.
Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) is the form of solar that can store the sun’s energy thermally for on-demand electricity generation. CSP is clean energy, like solar PV or wind, but the back end or the power block works like any thermal energy power station (coal, natural gas, and nuclear power plants are thermal energy power stations). The difference is that instead of digging up a finite fuel from the earth, CSP harvests sunlight to make thermal energy.
Grocery stores in Brooklyn and Queens are being recruited for a massive energy storage and load shifting experiment in New York City.
Photovoltaic solar power seems to get most of the attention when it comes to solar (for good reason), but global solar thermal electricity from concentrating solar power plants has also improved a lot in the last five years. The technology is diversifying, costs are dropping, and new markets have begun to … [continued]
