The world needs radical new energy technologies to fight climate change. In 2016, Quartz reported that a group of billionaires—including Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Jack Ma, Mukesh Ambani, and Richard Branson—launched Breakthrough Energy Ventures (BEV) to invest at least $1 billion in creating those technologies.
Now, 18 months later, Quartz can reveal the first two startups that BEV will be investing in: Form Energy and Quidnet Energy. Both companies are developing new technologies to store energy, but taking completely different approaches to achieve that goal.
Why it matters
The way to reach the world’s climate goals is straightforward: reduce our greenhouse-gas emissions to zero within the next few decades. But the energy technologies that can help us get there tend to need lots of money and long lead times to develop. That’s why many conventional investors, who are looking for quicker returns, have burned their fingers investing in clean tech.
The wealthy investors of BEV want to remedy that. Their $1 billion fund is “patient capital,” to be invested in only companies working on technologies capable of cutting global carbon emissions by at least 500 million metric tons annually, even if they may not provide returns on investment for up to 20 years.
That’s why many of the experts Quartz spoke to have been eager to find out what startups BEV backs. The choices BEV makes will likely shape how others think about energy innovation.
The missing piece
BEV’s first task was to assemble a group of experts, including academics, entrepreneurs, and industry specialists. In 2017, these experts announced a list of energy technologies they believe were both underfunded and extremely promising in emissions reduction: grid-scale energy storage, zero-carbon liquid fuels, micro grids, low-carbon building materials, and geothermal energy.
Quartz saw financial documents indicating BEV’s investment in two energy-storage startups. A BEV spokesperson confirmed the investments and said the company is actively looking to invest in other companies.
Energy storage can overcome the biggest limitation of modern renewable power: Solar panels and wind turbines can only generate energy when the sun is out or the wind is blowing. With better storage technology, that zero-carbon energy could be stored for cloudy or windless days.
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