In the Netherlands, where Aytak Yilmaz lives, the sun may not appear for days on end, which could significantly reduce the output of the country's solar panels. Wind turbines may fill some of the gap, but what if the wind disappears at the same time?
Enter long-term energy storage, or large-scale batteries, tailored to feed the power grid. Currently, most of them are lithium-ion batteries, which are plentiful thanks to automotive demand, but are still very expensive. In the future, Yilmaz envisions these batteries being made from cheap and abundant iron.
His startup Ore Energy has emerged from stealth today with €10 million in seed funding from Positron Ventures and other investors, the company exclusively tells TechCrunch. The funding will help the company in its quest to make grid-scale batteries not only cheaper but also longer lasting.
“We're targeting about 100 hours of storage so that we can really close the longer gap in renewable generation,” Yilmaz told TechCrunch. “The more renewable energy we have in the grid, the longer we need it.”
Ore Energy's core technology was spun out from Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, where Yilmaz studied corrosion as part of his PhD and postdoctoral research. Batteries release energy by causing steel to rust, and store energy by reversing that corrosion.
Unlike other batteries that ship with all the necessary chemicals packaged inside, the Ore Energy does not. Instead, it takes in oxygen, one of its main reactants, from the atmosphere. Hence the name “iron-air battery”. “This reaction occurs because the battery is actually breathing in and breathing out oxygen,” Yilmaz said.
He added that the company is already working with utilities and the technology is ready for commercial-scale production, and that some of the new funding will help build megawatt-scale factories. Yilmaz hopes to have gigawatt-sized factories online by the end of the decade. “The real goal is to completely decarbonize the power grid in the 2030s,” he said.
Orr Energy isn't the only startup working on iron-air batteries. In the US, Form Energy is the clear leader and has refined its approach over the years. The company has raised $928 million at a post-fund valuation of $2.06 billion, according to Pitchbook. The company is nearing completion of its first large-scale factory in West Virginia and plans to begin production later this year.
Although Form Energy has had a significant head start, Yilmaz believes there is room for multiple players in the game. “Form Energy is doing a really great job in the U.S.,” he said. “We have the same goal of transforming Europe's electricity grid.”