e-Zinc raises $25 million for commercial pilot of zinc battery long-term energy storage

Canadian company E-Zinc, which claims its zinc metal battery technology can provide low-cost, long-life energy storage, has raised $25 million (159.12 million RMB).

Founded in 2012, the company today announced the closing of its Series A round, two years after raising seed funding and starting to demonstrate how batteries could be paired with solar PV and grid generation, developing its own balance of system (BoS) solution in the process.

The technology is touted as a means of replacing diesel generator sets, providing between half a day and five days of backup power, with a particular focus on remote grid or off-grid sites.

In other words, the zinc battery can store and discharge for far longer than what is typically achieved with the current dominant grid battery technology, lithium-ion batteries, which are currently capped at around four to eight hours and are very expensive.

And this ability to discharge at full rated power for days could outperform other non-lithium alternatives such as flow batteries and most mechanical and thermal storage technologies, such as Form Energy’s oxygen-iron-air battery.

However, e-Zinc has not yet moved beyond the pilot stage – one project it is already working on is a 40kW system with 24 to 48 hours of storage duration, which will be paired with a solar PV array in California. The pilot is being installed at a commercial greenhouse site and is being funded by the California Energy Commission.

During the day, the battery system will charge or discharge from solar energy during peak demand times and power the facility at night. It can also be used to provide backup power and is expected to come online by the end of this year.

Daniel-Ivad also writes about the importance of zinc in battery history, having been a component of the world’s first battery and now being adopted by various energy storage technology companies as a solution for data centers, other commercial and industrial (C&I), and even in residential applications.

e-Zinc’s technology is also being piloted in the UK, in a project with EDF-owned energy storage developer and investor Pivot Power and funded by the government’s Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS).

Investors include Toyota and Eni

e-Zinc will begin pilot production of commercial energy storage systems following its latest funding round led by industrial and life sciences investment firm Anzu Partners. Other investors in the round include Canadian venture capital group BDC Capital, Toyota Ventures and Eni Next.

In addition to investing in the company and its technology, the investors will become important strategic partners and advisors to e-Zinc, with Toyota Ventures helping it scale up its manufacturing and supply chain, while Eni Next’s parent company Eni’s renewable energy projects could provide suitable battery deployment sites.

“While solar and wind deployment are expected to hit record highs, addressing the issue of intermittency is critical, which is why we are supporting e-Zinc,” said Lisa Coca, Partner at Toyota Ventures Climate Fund.

“The company’s innovative battery architecture decouples energy from the grid to enable cost-effective, long-duration energy storage – bringing us one step closer to a zero-carbon future.”

Another company that uses zinc as a key component of its energy storage technology, Eos Energy Enterprises, recently released its annual report for 2021. As reported, Eos has an order backlog of just under $150 million (955 million RMB), and expects its revenue to grow tenfold to around $50 million (318.25 million RMB) by 2022, from $4.6 million in 2021.

However, Eos, which is already in the commercial deployment phase for large-scale microgrids, commercial and industrial and grid-scale customers, does not expect to be profitable until the end of 2023 and reported a net loss of $124 million (789 million yuan) last year.

(Source: e-Zinc Global Energy Storage Network, New Energy Network Comprehensive)