Exclusive: Ore Energy emerges from stealth to build utility-scale batteries that last days, not hours
Summary
Where Aytac Yilmaz lives in the Netherlands, the sun might not appear for days on end, which can really crimp the output of the countrys solar panels. In the future, Yilmaz envisions those batteries being made of cheap, abundant iron.His startup, Ore Energy, emerged from stealth today with 10 million in seed funding from Positron Ventures and other investors, the company exclusively told TechCrunch. The more renewables that you have in the grid, the longer duration that you will need.Ore Energys core technology was spun out of TU Delft in the Netherlands, where Yilmaz researched corrosion as part of his PhD and postdoc. The batteries are actually inhaling and exhaling oxygen, and that is what allows these reactions to happen, Yilmaz said.The company is already working with utilities, he added, and the technology is ready for commercial-scale production, with a portion of the new funding helping to build a megawatt-scale factory. In the U.S., Form Energy is arguably the leader and has been refining its approach for years, having raised $928 million at a $2.06 billion post-money valuation, according to PitchBook.