Ørsted, a leading global clean energy company, and Newlab, a deep tech innovation hub, announced a new partnership to launch the Future Energy Storage Program that will engage start-ups, industry leaders and other innovation partners to advance early-stage energy storage technologies. The announcement came during Newlab’s New Climate Futures event as part of New York Climate Week.

The mission of the Future Energy Storage Studio is to scale up novel energy storage solutions for longer-duration and larger-scale applications. Ørsted and Newlab’s program will prioritize a broad spectrum of energy storage capabilities, including power-to-power technologies, long duration thermal storage to decarbonize industrial heat, and safe alternative chemistry batteries without lithium-ion. The Future Energy Storage Studio will accelerate a coordinated response across the full technology value chain through innovation, high impact pilots, and accessing public funding in three key avenues: infrastructure, projects, and research. Furthermore, it aims to create investment opportunities for innovative startups.

“Long duration energy storage will be key to scaling the deployment of clean energy while ensuring grid reliability and stability. Ørsted’s vision is a world that runs entirely on green energy and we are using our global clean energy expertise to support the acceleration of larger-scale, and longer-duration energy storage,” said Varun Sivaram, Senior Vice President and Head of Strategy, Innovation, Portfolio, Partnerships and M&A at Ørsted. “Open innovation collaboration is crucial for effectively implementing, evaluating, and commercializing future energy storage solutions in real-world scenarios to meet pressing climate challenges. We’re proud to work with Newlab and some very promising entrepreneurs and early-stage technologies, while engaging advanced technology companies and industry players to unlock innovation that has the potential to make an impact on a global scale.”

“Rapid commercialization of new technologies is essential to reinventing energy value chains in order to meet the world’s pressing climate challenges. We believe this can only be achieved with an exceptional degree of cooperation among industry leaders and startups specializing in energy storage technology. We are thrilled to partner with Ørsted to advance these new technologies through real-world testbeds, deployment sites, and dedicated partnerships and we invite other forward-thinking leaders to join us in co-creating innovative solutions,” said Satish Rao, Newlab Chief Product Officer.

With the launch of the Future Energy Storage Studio, Newlab and Ørsted have initially selected five high-performing startups along with a zinc consortium from a pool of over one hundred early-stage energy storage technology providers. The Future Energy Storage Studio is continuously seeking groundbreaking innovations across different chemistries, durations, and forms, including alternative chemistries like sodium, polymer, carbon-oxygen, and metal-air, flow batteries, thermal and mechanical innovations, gravity storage, as well as compressed and liquid air solutions, among others.

• Electrified Thermal Solutions offers the Joule HiveTM thermal battery for converting surplus renewable power to heat. Their system is a drop-in fossil fuel replacement capable of storing and delivering heat at high temperatures for hard-to-abate industrial heat decarbonization at a low cost.
• PolyJoule is pioneering a conductive polymer battery based on organic, non-metallic electrodes made from recycled and other plastic feedstocks that offers high operational flexibility capable of meeting the needs of both shorter-duration and longer-duration applications, without any dependence on critical minerals.
• VRB Energy, a subsidiary of Ivanhoe Electric (NYSE:IE), offers a vanadium redox flow battery with a proprietary low-cost membrane and vanadium sourced from spent petroleum catalysts. The vanadium electrolyte in VRB-ESS® can be charged and discharged over an almost unlimited number of cycles without wearing out, which is an inherent and distinct advantage for long-duration and long-life applications such as large-scale integration of solar and wind power onto utility grids.
• EarthEn provides thermo-mechanical energy storage based on supercritical CO2 operated in closed loop that enables flexible heat and electricity discharge on demand in durations ranging from 4 to 100 hours in a low-cost, safe, and small footprint
• Ambri develops a safe, efficient, long-lasting and cost competitive liquid metal battery based on commonly available calcium and antimony as active materials, making it specifically suitable for grid energy storage applications.
  

The Studio is also proactively expanding our network of industry participants, including power utilities, tech companies, energy-intensive sectors, and cross-sector innovators to provide insights into real-world applications, deployment sites and unique resources, where relevant. Furthermore, enabling partners such as universities, national labs, innovation public agencies and innovation test beds are vital in accelerating the technology maturation. Some initial studio participants include Con Edison, Stony Brook University, New York City Economic Development Corporation, and Energy DELTA Lab.

To join this challenge, visit our Open Call.