Long-duration energy storage designer CMBlu Energy today announced that infrastructure technology group STRABAG SE is investing $106.7 million into CMBlu. The new capital will allow CMBlu to accelerate the manufacturing scale-up of its Organic SolidFlow battery technology, a redox flow design that uses a mixture of solid electrolyte and water-based electrolytes.
“STRABAG and CMBlu Energy are highly complementary organizations with similar missions and philosophies,” said Dr. Peter Geigle, CEO and founder of CMBlu Energy. “This funding will enable us to expand production capacity in Europe and establish a manufacturing facility in the U.S. CMBlu will especially benefit from the broad experience and execution capabilities that STRABAG has in large infrastructure projects. We’re extremely pleased to receive this investment, which boosts our business, validates our technology, and paves the way for rapid growth, both in Europe and the U.S.”
CMBlu Energy, together with collaboration partners, is currently working on multiple pilot projects in the United States and Europe to prove out its large-scale energy storage solutions. These include publicly announced projects with WEC Energy Group in Wisconsin, Salt River Project in Arizona, and several other sites in Europe.
CMBlu Energy’s design combines the advantages of two proven technologies – redox flow batteries and solid-state batteries. Organic SolidFlow offers independent scaling of power and energy, without sacrificing energy density. The technology is based on safe, abundant, and recyclable organic materials, resulting in an energy storage system that can be affordably scaled and adjusted to the application and customer. CMBlu expects its battery system to cost-effectively store and deliver energy for two- to three-times longer per cycle than traditional lithium-ion technology, which typically targets a four-hour duration.
“To become reality, the energy transition will require storage capacity measured in terawatts,” added CMBlu’s Dr. Geigle. “Only with very large storage capacities can GHG reduction goals be met. Our Organic SolidFlow batteries can be scaled up to the gigawatt-hour range, which enables the balance between renewable energy supply and essential energy demand – even without wind or sun.”
News item from CMBlu
