News & Press

Thermal batteries could transform renewable energy storage and provide a cheaper and scalable alternative to lithium-ion technology.

Instead of towering smokestacks, the GreenLab industrial park in Skive, Denmark, is surrounded by wind turbines and a solar array that power its resident companies with renewable energy. "Everything that we are doing is about electrifying," GreenLab CEO Thomas Helsgaun told Newsweek. The seven businesses at the park include a waste handler, a plastics recycler and companies producing biogas, sustainable aviation fuel and protein for animal feed.

Rondo Energy is supplying cheap, zero-emissions heat to factories to replace fossil-fuel-powered boilers, furnaces, and kilns. Its approach of using bricks and iron wire to provide a steady supply of hot air or steam stands out for its simplicity and potential to scale.

Rondo, a start-up (which we profiled last year) using thermal batteries to provide low-carbon industrial heat, last month became the second company to secure funding through the EIB-BE Catalyst partnership, with the former providing €35mn in venture debt, and the latter a €40mn grant. Rondo is using these funds to develop not one but three plants in Germany, Denmark, and a third as yet undisclosed European country.

Supplying the high temperatures needed for industrial processes – like cement, steel and petrochemical production – accounts for around a fifth of total global energy demand. Most of this energy is generated by burning fossil fuels, releasing the equivalent of billions of tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere each year – roughly one third of humanity’s greenhouse gas emissions.

As the ethanol industry waits for significant carbon intensity-reducing measures to come to fruition, such as carbon capture and storage (CCS)—already happening for some—and regenerative farming practices, multiple strategies exist today that, when deployed together, can substantially decrease CI scores.

Rondo Energy is taking its hot rock batteries on the road. Rondo Energy, a Silicon Valley startup building “heat batteries” to replace fossil fuels in heavy industries, announced three new customers on Wednesday. In just a few months' time, the company has gone from serving a single industry — ethanol — at its pilot plant in California, to making deals around the globe that demonstrate the technology’s potential versatility.

Three heat battery facilities will help decarbonise food, clean fuel and chemical production across Europe by storing excess wind and solar power for when it’s needed. The EU and a Bill Gates innovation fund are backing three projects to decarbonise European industry using brick batteries that store excess renewable energy as heat.

This is a great day. I have a great piece of news to share with you. Eric Trusiewicz has stepped up to lead Rondo Energy as CEO and I am stepping into the role of Chief Innovation Officer at Rondo.

A California startup says it can help de-carbonize industrial manufacturing by using batteries made of clay. Instead of storing electricity, these clay batteries store heat. Matt Dibble has more in this week’s episode of LogOn.

Saudi Arabian oil firm Aramco has entered into a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Rondo Energy, a thermal energy storage company, following an equity investment.

The project will help Bulleit and Diageo make progress on ambitious climate goals while demonstrating clean technology from partner company Rondo Energy, an innovative approach that could have widespread application in other industries.