The Conversation (2)
Fortune recently published a piece looking at startup companies in the lead acid battery space. Despite the massive amount of attention given to lithium-ion batteries, startups such as Gridtential and Energy Power Systems are still focused on lead.
Fortune recently published a piece looking at startup companies in the lead acid battery space. Despite the massive amount of attention given to lithium-ion batteries, startups such as Gridtential and Energy Power Systems are still focused on lead.
As quoted in the publication:
This week, at a small booth at the back of a sprawling solar industry conference in San Francisco this week, stands an entrepreneur who’s been working on a promising next-generation lead acid battery. Christiaan Beekhuis, the CEO and co-founder of startup Gridtential, shows me an early prototype of the company’s “silicon joule” lead acid battery sitting on the exhibition table.
The battery uses important sections made of silicon, instead of the standard lead grids that most lead acid batteries use. Because of this innovation, Beekhuis says his batteries have a higher energy density (can store more energy for their size) and can last far longer than typical lead acid batteries. But producing such batteries could still be cheaper than most of the standard lithium-ion batteries out there.
The company also plans to make its batteries with equipment that commonly churns out computer chips, hard-disk drives and conventional lead acid batteries. That means that Gridtential — or a company that licenses the technology — could buy or use off-the-shelf factory gear to make the batteries.