Cameron Dales (L), president and chief business officer of Peak Energy, and Landon Mossburg, the CEO of Peak Energy, on a hike within the earliest days of the corporate. The mountains of Colorado within the background impressed the title of the corporate, Peak Energy.
Photo courtesy Peak Energy
Battery business veterans are coming collectively to launch Peak Energy, which goals to mass-produce large batteries to even out manufacturing fluctuations from renewable vitality sources, like wind and solar energy turbines.
Because Peak Energy is targeted on scaling up manufacturing of battery expertise that already exists, they do not consider themselves as a conventional “startup.”
“A normal Silicon Valley startup is 10 years in the lab, come up with a better mousetrap and go to market. We’re completely the opposite,” Cameron Dales, president and chief business officer of Peak Energy, instructed CNBC in a video interview Friday.
Peak Energy hopes to companion with a expertise firm (but to be chosen) that’s already an skilled in battery expertise however doesn’t have the capability to scale manufacturing.
“In the battery market it turns out the rarest commodity is not the technology — there are many excellent ideas out there at academic labs and startups — but rather the ability to scale to manufacturing,” CEO Landon Mossburg instructed CNBC. “The difficulty of manufacturing scale up is one of the reasons you see so many ‘breakthrough battery technology’ announcements but very very few companies who actually reach market.”
Peak Energy launched in June and is popping out of stealth on Wednesday, saying a $10 million funding spherical lead by Greg Reichow at Eclipse, a Silicon Valley enterprise capital agency. Before becoming a member of Eclipse, Reichow labored at Tesla for greater than 5 years, the place he was answerable for battery, motor and electronics manufacturing after which led international manufacturing. Also becoming a member of the funding elevate is TDK Ventures, the company enterprise capital arm of the Tokyo-headquartered multinational electronics firm TDK.
“The No. 1 issue we face as it relates to expanding renewable energy sources is storage,” Reichow instructed CNBC. “This problem must be solved, but the existing approaches using lithium-ion and other technologies are not yet at a price point that enables the kind of scaling that society needs across sectors.”
Demand for grid-scale storage will proceed to develop. The United States Energy Information Administration has projected that battery storage capability will develop from 9 gigawatts in 2022 to 49 gigawatts in 2030 after which to 247 gigawatts in 2050. That’s a baseline projection that features the Inflation Reduction Act and assumes no extra modifications in U.S. coverage all through the projection interval.
(L to R) Ryan Gibson, Eclipse Venture companion; Landon Mossburg, Peak Energy CEO; Aidan Madigan-Curtis, Eclipse companion and Cameron Dales, Peak Energy president and chief business officer, in protecting gear at a battery manufacturing facility clear room.
Photo courtesy Peak Energy
A stacked staff with aggressive development targets
Peak Energy remains to be in its very early days. There are about 10 staff and a enterprise workplace in San Francisco.
But that headcount will triple in coming months, and Peak Energy goals to construct its first prototype battery programs, with particular person batteries certain collectively into bigger programs utilizing batteries sourced from a 3rd social gathering in 2024. By 2030, Peak says it is going to be producing “double digit gigawatt” portions of battery cells for its personal battery programs and for different functions.
That’s no small feat. It takes between $50 million and $100 million per gigawatt to construct a battery manufacturing facility, and a 30-gigawatt manufacturing facility would make use of between 2,000 and three,000 individuals and be between 1 and a couple of million sq. ft, Mossburg instructed CNBC.
It’s an aggressive and costly buildout plan, however Mossburg has completed this type of speedy manufacturing scale up earlier than when he labored at Northvolt, a battery manufacturing firm that launched in 2016 in Sweden. Northvolt was based by Peter Carlsson, who was the worldwide head of sourcing and provide chain at Tesla from 2011 to 2015, and Mossburg joined 2017. After 18 months, Northvolt had 300 individuals, and grew to 4,000 individuals by the point Mossburg left 4 years later.
Cameron Dales and US Representative Rho Kana in 2021 on the Enovix battery manufacturing facility in Fremont, Calif.
Photo courtesy Cameron Dales
Of course, Peak Energy must elevate more cash to fund this type of enlargement. Much more.
“We’re running a playbook which I and the rest of the executive team initially demonstrated and deployed at Northvolt,” Mossburg instructed CNBC. Northvolt additionally began with a small seed spherical of funding and ended up elevating greater than $9 billion in a mix of fairness and debt. Mossburg was concerned with securing all of that financing apart from the newest $1.2 billion introduced in August.
Dales has comparable expertise. He co-founded a cloth sciences innovation firm, Symyx Technologies, which went public in 1999, then joined the battery firm Enovix.
“I thought naively, ‘Well, how hard could batteries be? It’s just a plus and a minus, everybody has a Duracell. How hard could it be?’ Little did I know, 14 years later, I would still be there,” Dales instructed CNBC. Enovix was making very excessive vitality density batteries at a battery manufacturing facility in Fremont, California, and is constructing one other one in Penang, Malaysia. The firm went public in a billion-dollar-plus SPAC deal in 2021.
“Peak Energy’s team comprises of two industry veteran leaders who have scaled a battery company before,” Anil Achyuta, who lead the funding for TDK Ventures, mentioned in a written assertion shared with CNBC.
So, too, for Eclipse.
“Landon and I worked together at Tesla and I know what he’s capable of delivering,” Reichow instructed CNBC. “After leaving Tesla, he went on to build a battery company as an executive at Northvolt. Similarly, Cam was a core part of the founding team at Enovix and was instrumental in helping them build the business. These are proven executives that have built battery companies in some of the hardest spaces and that makes them unique.”
Why Peak Energy is specializing in sodium ion
Peak Energy is targeted on making massive sodium-ion battery programs to pair with wind and photo voltaic vitality manufacturing amenities. Large grid-scale batteries can seize the vitality generated from renewable sources, then maintain that vitality and dispatch it later when the wind is not blowing or the solar is not shining.
Peak Energy will make particular person battery cells, in regards to the dimension of a loaf of bread, says Dales. Then these loaf of bread battery cells get wired collectively to make modules, which might be in regards to the dimension of a submitting cupboard. Then these submitting cupboards shall be assembled right into a battery the scale of the again of a tractor trailer truck, then deployed close to a photo voltaic or wind farm, 50 to 100 at a time.
One hundred blocks can energy 62,500 properties for 4 hours, Mossburg instructed CNBC.
An artist rendering of the Peak Energy battery system.
Rendering courtesy Peak Energy.
The most common battery expertise proper now could be lithium ion, utilized in cellphones and electrical autos, and they’re prized for his or her vitality density. Sodium-ion batteries are much less vitality dense and heavier — dangerous for cell gadgets or automobiles, however much less related in the case of grid-scale batteries.
“Weight, and therefore energy density, is much less important in a stationary storage system. The fact that these batteries are less energy dense isn’t really a big consideration for this application,” Reichow instructed CNBC.
What does matter when you find yourself speaking about storing big portions of vitality is the fee.
“A much more important consideration is the cost per unit energy that you’re able to store and that is where sodium ion, we believe, will have a big advantage over lithium ion in the future,” Reichow instructed CNBC.
It’s too early for Peak Energy to decide to a particular worth for its battery programs, however a Tesla Megapack battery system prices about $1.3 million with out set up, and Mossburg says he thinks Peak Energy may be at roughly half of that value with its system.
In addition, lithium-ion batteries could be a fireplace hazard and the electrical car makers are consuming up all out there provide, Dales instructed CNBC. The downside utilities have is “the minute Ford or GM needs more batteries, basically their contracts for lithium ion just get canceled and the suppliers just go for the car, because it’s today the largest market,” Dales instructed CNBC.
Also, China dominates the battery market and provide chains proper now. “They’re the dominant player in batteries generally — by far — they are massive in terms of battery production,” Mossburg instructed CNBC. “And they’re positioning to do the same with sodium.”
Alun Thomas, Head of Manufacturing Engineering at Peak Energy, inside a battery manufacturing machine.
Photo courtesy Peak Energy
While Mossburg says he thinks it’s a profit for the world for the United States and China to proceed to commerce, and Peak Energy is keen to work with Chinese companions, there are geopolitical dangers related to relying on China fully. Peak Energy’s plan to fabricate within the United States is a geopolitical benefit, he says. (It’s additionally extra climate-conscious to make these large batteries within the U.S. versus making them in China and delivery them to the U.S.)
“You don’t want to be in a situation where a critical component of the energy infrastructure of your entire economy, which batteries are increasingly becoming, is principally sourced from a party that you can’t be sure you’re going to be friends with,” Mossburg instructed CNBC. “If the U.S. wants to continue to have a robust economy, especially an economy that can make things like cars or even like high-tech things, ceding an entire industry that’s this important to any other player — doesn’t matter if it’s China or anyone else — is a dangerous prospect.”
The first actual gigantic battery manufacturing facility on the planet was the Tesla/Panasonic Gigafactory in Nevada, and Reichow led the event of that, Dales mentioned. The second era “arguably” was the factories that Mossburg constructed with Northvolt and that Dales helped construct at Enovix, Dales mentioned. Peak Energy is “taking that learning and the people who developed those factories and we are going after the third generation of factory design,” Dales instructed CNBC.
Source: www.cnbc.com”