About three years ago inside a sprawling factory southeast of Pittsburgh, a promising battery startup was churning out some of the first of its ultra-simple, nontoxic, low-cost batteries made from a combination of salt water, carbon and manganese oxide.
With $180 million in funding from some of Silicon Valley’s best-known names, including billionaire Bill Gates, it looked like the batteries could be some of the first with an alternative type of chemistry to provide low-cost storage for the power grid, buildings, remote machinery and clean energy farms.
But that vision didn’t quite pan out. Just a couple of months ago, the battery maker, Aquion Energy, filed for bankruptcy protection, laid off almost all of its workers and ceased selling its stackable energy storage devices. As the company looks for a buyer, it’s also been hit with a lawsuit from former workers who say they were let go without proper notice, and it has been the target of critics who question why the firm was still struggling after receiving state and federal support.
It’s a familiar tale for battery industry watchers. From big companies like A123 Systems, to smaller ones like EnerVault and Imergy, companies developing new types of battery chemistries have faced difficult markets, major technical hurdles, and long sales cycles.
In recent years, however, the dramatically dropping cost of lithium-ion batteries has become chief among the concerns. While some predicted these batteries would become cheaper over time, most didn’t estimate that the prices would go so low so fast — making the outlook for alternative battery chemistries a lot murkier.
Recent Comments