Heat Battery: Rondo targets Australia after landing global giants in latest fund raising

A California-based start-up is targeting Australia after raising $A90 million from big name investors for its revolutionary “heat battery” that it says can deliver storage at half the price of batteries and hydrogen.

Rondo Energy says its “heat battery” can store electricity generated from wind and solar as high-temperature heat in brick materials at up to 1500°C for hours and days, which can then be released as heat (or steam) and replace gas in key industrial processes.

Its technology has attracted interest from some big name global players, such as Rio Tinto, Saudi Arabia’s Aramco Ventures, Microsoft’s Climate Innovation Fund and the Bill Gates’ backed Breakthrough Energy Ventures.

Other investors include Energy Impact Partners, Thai-ceramics company SCG, Titan, Sabic, John Doeerr and SDCL. Most have contributed to the latest $US60 million ($A90 million) raising.

“As wind and sunshine have become cheaper than coal and gas, Australia’s energy mix has turned upside down,” said Tom Geiser, Rondo’s country manager, who is based in Sydney.

“Rondo opens the simplest, fastest, lowest-cost pathway to profitability in this new world for our energy-intensive industries, including food, fuels, and metals. We’re now ready to deploy with speed and scale, and we’re excited to be standing up a local team to serve Australia.”

Rondo’s technology is based around centuries-old use of heated bricks but applies them in a way that can operate at industrial scale, and at low cost.

SCG (Siam cement) is making the bricks at a facility in Thailand, with a production rate of up to 2.4GWh a year and plans to lift this to annual production rate to 90GWh, which would make it the biggest battery factory in the world.

It has just the one operating facility in California, a 2.4MWh pilot at Calgren Renewable Fuels, where it produces steam for an ethanol refinery.

Rondo says this project has the highest efficiency, highest temperature energy storage of any kind worldwide, and was the first commercially operating electric thermal energy storage system in the US.

Now it’s targeting Australia and its massive use of heat in industrial processes. Industry accounts for nearly half of Australia’s energy use, with more than half of this used for heat in industrial processes and most of this sourced from fossil fuels.

Geiser says the technology can deliver continuous heat for processes making everything from metals, cement, and chemicals to baby food. It could even be used to “re-power” coal fired power plants, creating and storing steam for the turbines with wind and solar rather than burning coal.

Geiser – who used to work at Neoen, the most successful lithium ion battery storage developer in Australia – says the heat batteries – stored in insulated containers – can drop in seamlessly into existing facilities, and can deliver flexible, instant-response loads.

“Australia’s combination of export-facing industries, abundant wind and solar, open markets, and energy expertise creates a tremendous opportunity for Rondo to build at scale and create benefits across the economy,” the company says.

Rondo says its Heat Batteries can deliver industrial heat – which has been dubbed the next “trillion dollar market” at half the cost of other technologies such as green hydrogen and chemical batteries.

“Recent studies have found that the decarbonized world will need twice as much heat battery storage as grid battery storage, and that heat batteries will greatly reduce energy costs to produce many key commodities in the coming few years,” the company says.

Rio Tinto’s chief scientist Nigel Steward said in a statement that companies like Rondo are vital to the growth of energy storage technologies.

“Decarbonising our operations by reducing process heat emissions is one of our priorities,” he said. “Rondo’s technology is addressing the challenge of making electrification of process heat not only possible but highly efficient. We’re really looking forward to seeing the future capacity advancements.”