A battery that doesn’t blow up, doesn’t use scarce rare earth metals, and can power your house for 20 years — is it possible? VoltStorage, a Munich-based startup, which just received €6m in VC funding, thinks it has the answer.
It is about the size of a small fridge and uses vanadium redox-flow technology to store energy, rather than the lithium-ion batteries that are used for powering laptops and electric cars. NASA is in fact exploring the same technology for future Mars missions, due to its long life, safety, and affordability.
VoltStorage, however, is concentrating on applications closer to home, namely, the market for home energy storage, particularly for people wanting to store solar energy.
“Millions of houses now have solar panels on the roof, so it makes sense to have a battery that can really make use of the energy these generate,” says Michael Peither, cofounder and chief technology officer of VoltStorage.
VoltStorage, founded in 2016, is among a new wave of startups focused on energy storage, alongside Switzerland’s Energy Vault, a gravity and kinetic energy-based storage startup, which raised $110m from SoftBank last year.