Malta, an electro-thermal energy storage company, incubated at X, Alphabet's Moonshot Factory, has raised $26m in series A funding.
Image: Malta secures $26m in funding to develop grid-scale energy storage Photo: Courtesy of Armin Hanisch/FreeImages.com.
The funding in Malta was led by Breakthrough Energy Ventures with participation from other investors including Concord New Energy Group and Alfa Laval.
Malta began as ‘Project Malta’ at Alphabet’s Moonshot Factory, X and is now independent company outside of Alphabet.
Malta CEO Ramya Swaminathan said: “Our investors share our vision to create a scalable storage solution that will facilitate further expansion of renewable energy while improving grid stability and resilience across the globe. Beyond capital investment, they are truly partnering with us to build a first-of-a-kind product. We appreciate their confidence in our strategy and in our team’s ability to execute on it.”
Malt energy storage system will store energy in the form of thermal differential between hot and cold storage media. It claims to based on established principles of thermodynamics, for a system that stores electricity as heat in high temperature molten salt and cold in a low temperature antifreeze liquid.
As the company was incubtated at Alphabet’s Moonshot Factory, X, the project claims to have undergone rigorous evaluation and de-risking process.
After this funding round, Malta will work in collaboration with industry partners to turn the detailed designs developed and refined at X into industrial-grade machinery for its first pilot system.
The company claims that its system can store electricity for days or even weeks, at a stretch, until its needed. The electricity can be sourced from wind, sun, or fossil fuels, in any location.
Breakthrough Energy Ventures’ Carmichael Roberts said: “Solving the intermittency problem of renewable energy is a critical part of delivering inexpensive and reliable clean energy, which is why storage is an important area of investment for BEV.
“Malta’s energy storage system is a different and promising approach from conventional batteries, using existing components and inexpensive resources to store energy as heat – and that makes the system cost-effective to scale.
“We’re also excited about this investor syndicate, pooling our unique resources to bring this technology to market.”