Friday 28 August 2020

EnerVenue raises $12m to bring metal hydrogen batteries to market

California-based EnerVenue has raised $12 million (£9m) in seed funding to accelerate the development of its metal hydrogen batteries and bring them to market.

The company is a spin-out of Eenotech, a materials-focused start-up for nanotechnology-driven solutions to water purification, grid-scale energy storage, smart wearable textiles and other energy and environmental issues.

The EnerVenue metal hydrogen batteries are developed for large-scale renewable and storage applications and designed to operate in very high and low temperatures with a 30-year lifespan and with cost-per-kilowatt-hour cycles “as low as a penny”.

The company suggests the technology is easy to recycle and nickel hydrogen batteries have completed more than 200 million cell-hours in orbital spacecraft and more than 100,000 charge/discharge cycles.

Dr. Yi Cui, a Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at Stanford University and Founder, Chairman of the Board and Chief Technology Advisor EnerVenue said: “As an example of metal hydrogen batteries, nickel-hydrogen batteries have proven to be an incredibly powerful energy storage technology – albeit an expensive one – for the aerospace industry over the past 40 years.

“The performance and longevity of nickel-hydrogen batteries is well-established and second to none. We’re now able to deliver the same performance and durability at a breakthrough competitive price using new low cost materials.”