Photon Vault

Photon Vault is very excited to have been chosen as a technology innovation partner with Colusa Indian Energy and Strata Expanse in their strategic partnership to develop an AI and Energy infrastructure campus on the lands of the Cachil Dehe Band of Wintun Indians of the Colusa Indian Community in northern California. Photon Vault will provide its #thermalenergystorage solution to capture waste heat from natural gas turbines, increasing their efficiency and lowering emissions per MW of compute. The thermal storage will hold 100 hours of stored energy, providing unparalleled resilience and improving redundancy. Phase I is proposed to be a 5MW / 500MWh system at the Center of Excellence planned at the Project Site, with additional phases to follow. 🔗 Read about it here: https://lnkd.in/g8mXRHac #PoweredAI #longdurationenergystorage

Tl;dr - the best long duration storage business model is not just deep resilience. It is BOTH deep resilience and daily cycling. Great piece this week from Energy-Storage.news comparing 100-hour batteries. But the conversation is incomplete without thermal storage. At Photon Vault, we are building a 100-hour energy storage solution that works on entirely different principles, and we think the article missed the metric that matters most: energy cost ($/kWh). Roundtrip efficiency, energy density, degradation, system life. These are all important. But they are inputs to the question that actually determines whether a storage solution can compete in a given market. That question is: how much does it cost to charge, and how much do you get when you discharge? This is what differentiates the Photon Vault. These other 100-hour systems charge with electricity and discharge electricity. If your roundtrip efficiency is 35-40%, you need very cheap electricity to make that work. And the cheapest electricity (excess spring and summer renewables) shows up at the wrong time of year. You are least likely to need multi-day storage in June. You are most likely to need it in January. That seasonal mismatch is a real problem for any storage asset that depends on near-free electricity to charge. We charge primarily with heat, not electricity. Heat is far cheaper per unit of energy, and critically, the cost is a function of capital, not a commodity price. It is stable for the life of the project. So even though our roundtrip efficiency is below 35% (comparable to iron-air), our effective input cost is substantially lower. That means a wider margin between what it costs to charge and what we earn on discharge. And that margin is what makes daily cycling profitable. This is the key point: the best long duration storage business model is not just deep resilience. It is BOTH deep resilience and daily cycling. Multi-day backup is enormously valuable when you need it (think $200+/MWh), but those events are rare. An asset that also cycles 6-16 hours every day spreads its cost over far more MWhs and can offer a much lower price to customers. Our baseload solar design pairs about 8 hours of solar PV with 16 hours of Photon Vault storage, every day, for a retail price of about $0.10/kWh in California! On the other metrics in the article, we clock in at $20/kWh of incremental storage, durations between 10-200 hours, zero degradation of the storage medium, and a 30-year system life for our power block. No thermal runaway. No capacity die off. If you are planning for long duration energy storage, keep thermal in the conversation. We think you will like what the numbers say. DM me for details, or visit www.photonvault.com. https://lnkd.in/efzJCZJx #energystorage #baseloadsolarenergy #longdurationenergystorage #energytransition

The hardest part of the journey for hardware / deep tech start-ups is the jump from prototype to First of a Kind “real-world” deployment. Photon Vault is ready to make that jump and we are excited to meet new potential partners at this event through Developer U !

Please register to participate in this great roundtable discussion of #longdurationenergystorage with our Chief Commercial Officer John Langhus and other great panelists hosted by Raafe K. and Camelot Energy Group.

We couldn’t agree more with Pasquale Romano . For thermal batteries the capex burden rests with the power block, not the storage. Use the power block more and that cost is easier to amortize. Photon Vault looks to deliver thermal energy storage with production of 8-24 hours per day, every day, at a price that beats delivered power prices in virtually every market. #thermalenergystorage #longdurationenergystorage #decarbonization #EnergyTransition https://lnkd.in/eYJ_Gkyr

We are excited to have been selected by the #CleanPowerAlliance for a fully commercial demonstration of our 24/7 solar baseload power solution. Combining solar PV plus 100 hours of Photon Vault's #longdurationenergystorage, we will provide 5MWs of clean solar power at a 95% capacity factor! That's energy-nerd lingo for "95% of every hour of the year". Rain or shine. Day or night. This is what the #EnergyTransition looks like, and we are proud to be playing our part. https://lnkd.in/ejUp5DP3