The excess renewables opportunity

Kimber believes six technologies have the most promise for using the coming flood of cheap renewable electricity: desalination, data centers, fuels like green hydrogen, direct air capture, widespread EV charging, and heat energy for heavy industry.

That latter area is a large focus for Rondo Energy, the company behind the brick “battery” at the California ethanol plant. Manufacturing steel, cement, and chemicals requires high heat, which today comes mostly from fossil fuels. Rondo projects heat bricks during the day, when solar electricity is plentiful, then discharge them when a factory needs to power its kilns. In the future, the startup is considering linking up to wind and solar projects behind-the-meter, potentially speeding up renewables projects that have long been mired in a lengthy interconnection backlog. Continue reading on Latitude Media.