Our investment in Ore Energy

Solar and wind energy provide an increasing share of electricity, but do so intermittently. Long duration storage solutions are therefore essential to decarbonise our energy system. Although lithium-ion batteries are on a decreasing cost trajectory, prices will likely remain high given the scarcity of its raw materials. Additionally, li-ion batteries work cost effectively at storage durations of 1-4  hours. To buffer intermittency of renewable energy, it needs longer duration storage solutions.

Next to known solutions - such as pumped hydro or flow batteries - we need new solutions that can provide long duration energy storage at ultra low cost. A great contender is an alternative battery chemistry: iron-air. 

Iron-air batteries generate electricity by oxidising iron – essentially harnessing the power of rust – and are recharged through a reverse process of 'unrusting'. However, this latter part poses a significant challenge, as rust does not easily revert to metallic iron. 

The team of Ore Energy has found a way to reversibly oxidise iron through advancements in material science and tackled other challenges of metal-air batteries such as greatly reducing hydrogen evolution and building a cathode from significantly cheaper materials at the same efficiency.

Ore Energy was founded by Dr. Aytac Yilmaz and spun out from TU Delft in 2023. The company has scaled up the initial lab cells into a first usable battery technology. The batteries they envision are ultra low cost and are well suited to provide long duration energy storage - simply based on abundant materials: iron, water and air. 

We have been a proud investor in Aytac and his growing team at Ore Energy since day one and incredibly impressed by the progress they have made. Now we are looking forward to seeing the first prototypes perform in the soon-to-start pilots.

Media coverage: Techcrunch, FD

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