“The cost of our system will be very competitive compared to existing utility scale.” energy storage “On a lifecycle basis, EnerVenue storage is cheaper and has better durability than lithium-ion batteries,” Chan said at the One Sustainability Conference in Hong Kong on March 25. Speaking on the sidelines of the Earth Summit. , safety, versatility and sustainability. ”
Alan Chan Yinglun attended the One Earth Summit in Hong Kong in March 2024.Photo: Jonathan Wong

According to Zhang, the startup's product can be charged and discharged 30,000 times without interruption for 30 years. It is fireproof, operates at minus 40 to 50 degrees Celsius, and is 90 percent recyclable.

According to the International Energy Agency, global energy storage investment was estimated to exceed US$35 billion last year, up from US$20 billion in 2022, with most of it being installed on the power grid.

The two main applications for bulk energy storage today are electric vehicle batteries and utility-scale systems. The latter is EnerVenue's focus, used in the power grid to manage intermittent renewable power production and serve as a backup power source for industrial, commercial, and residential buildings.

Billionaire Peter Lee Kakit, of EnerVenue investor Full Vision Capital, is also co-chairman of real estate conglomerate Henderson Land.Photo: Handout

The nickel-metal hydride system being developed by EnerVenue will compete with other grid storage technologies, including lithium-ion, sodium-sulfur, flow batteries, and hydropumps that store energy by pumping water from one reservoir to another at a higher elevation. Masu.

Lithium-ion batteries have a much higher energy density than nickel-metal hydride batteries and are experiencing the fastest growth in commercial use. However, nickel metal hydride batteries have been popular for decades due to their long lifespan and stability. Satellites and other space applications.
Chan said EnerVenue is building its first gigawatt hour (GWh). energy storage The factory in Changzhou, Jiangsu province is scheduled to be completed by early next year. He said the company plans to build 5 to 10 GWh of capacity in China and the United States, but did not specify investment amounts or time frames.

02:22

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2021, Hong Kong and China Gas – also known as town gasThe city's leading piped gas supplier and mainland China's leading natural gas distributor has been awarded a contract to become the exclusive distributor of EnerVenue products in China. Towngas, where Chan serves as chief investment officer, is a minority shareholder in Enervenue.

A year ago, EnerVenue announced it would build its first 1GWh factory in the U.S. on a 73-acre site in Kentucky (equivalent to 55 football fields) to house design, manufacturing and testing facilities.

A subsequent expansion phase could see the company's output capacity increase to more than 20 GWh per year, with a total investment cost of over USD 1 billion, supported by generous local government tax incentives. At the time, EnerVenue had customer commitments exceeding 7GWh, the company said.

In late 2021, EnerVenue, co-founded by Stanford University materials science and engineering professor Cui Yi and Lee's Full Vision, closed on US$125 million in Series A funding.

The funding round was led by Texas oilfield services company Schlumberger and attracted investment from oil giant Saudi Aramco, Beijing-based investment firm IDG Capital, and Fulvision, and will support battery research, marketing and production scale in China and the United States. Funded the expansion. .

“In 2018, we sat down with Professor Choi from Stanford University to discuss the next generation of batteries,” said Chan. “He said we had a solution, and he and my team put together a piece of paper with the intellectual property involved and the future direction of the company, and we were just five people and he founded EnerVenue. did.”



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