Green Energy: Bezos battery to beat Tesla at its own game?

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos had enough big rocket energy going around last week for us all with his garishly executed private space flight.

He has his fingers in many pies though and one he shares with Bill Gates is an investment in Form Energy, an American startup which wants to produce the world’s cheapest 100-hour storage battery.

It is using an iron rich technology called “iron air” that Form claims is rechargeable and provides enough storage to see out outages caused by multi-day extreme weather events.

On top of that, the start-up claims the technology can be delivered at 1/10th of the cost of the lithium ion batteries championed by Elon Musk’s Tesla, saying it could be a game-changer for providing stability to renewable rich electricity grids.

“We conducted a broad review of available technologies and have reinvented the iron-air battery to optimize it for multi-day energy storage for the electric grid,” CEO Mateo Jaramillo said.

“With this technology, we are tackling the biggest barrier to deep decarbonisation: making renewable energy available when and where it’s needed, even during multiple days of extreme weather or grid outages.”

Along with Bezos and Gates, Form Energy recently wrapped up a US$200 million funding round led by steel giant ArcelorMittal, which will supply iron for the batteries.

Form’s first commercial project will be rolled out in Minnesota with power co-op Great River Energy.

Heavy-hitter joins Province board

Shares in ASX-listed explorer turned hydrogen developer Province Resources (ASX:PRL) gained this morning after it announced the appointment of former Woodside exec and top government bureaucrat Roger Martin to its board.

New non-executive director Martin was until this year the chief of staff to newly-minted Rio Tinto director Ben Wyatt during his successful stint as Treasurer of WA.

Province is aiming to capitalise on the WA Government’s Hydrogen Strategy at its HyEnergy project in WA’s windy and sun rich Gascoyne region.

It aims to develop a wind and solar precinct that would be used to produce renewable hydrogen gas for export and injection into the Dampier to Bunbury gas pipeline.

“I am extremely pleased to welcome Roger to the company, his deep knowledge and vast experience with government and other stakeholders will be critical in the company’s efforts to advance the HyEnergy project through the various pathways to approval,” Province MD David Frances said.

“His passion for the global energy transition to renewables is something that resonates well with the Province team.”