Australian thermal storage start-up secures $8.25m towards “1,000 blocks a day” goal

MGA Thermal, a New South Wales based start-up looking to revolutionise thermal storage, has secured $8.25 million in funding towards completing its first factory production line.

Founded in 2019, MGA Thermal says it has developed a breakthrough form of energy storage that uses so-called ‘MGA Blocks’ to store huge amounts of energy as heat.

Based on the company’s newly invented Miscibility Gap Alloys (MGA) thermal storage material, the MGA Blocks can be stacked into insulated storage tanks to store energy for use in a range of applications.

The company’s latest fundraising effort attracted interest from a range of investors with the resulting $8.25 million to be used as a foundation for the next phase of the company’s growth.

The investment will help to facilitate the commissioning of an on-site production line and accelerate operations well into 2024.

MGA Thermal has already attracted attention for its unique storage technology. In February, British oil & gas supermajor Shell sank $560,000 into the company to help build a $3 million, 5MWh pilot that will stack 3,700 blocks into a 12-metre by 3-metre structure.

Set to boast an energy density some 20 times that of a traditional lithium-ion battery, the system will charge and discharge, in the form of steam, at up to 500kW for 10 hours.

“It’s a combination of our purpose-built MGA Thermal Blocks and Thermal Energy Storage (TES) systems that unlocks the transition to clean energy by making it reliable, cost-effective and scalable,” said Erich Kisi, CEO of MGA Thermal.

“With the imminent completion of our production line, we’re on track to produce 1,000 blocks per day which can then be assembled into 24/7 renewable energy storage.”