Danish startup gets multi-million dollar backing to store energy in salt – EQ Mag Pro

A startup developing a technology to store energy in molten salt has raised about $ 12 million from backers, including Denmark’s richest man.

Hyme will spend some of the money on a pilot plant to find new ways to store unused electricity from wind and solar power, CEO Ask Lovschall-Jensen said in an interview. And the Danish company is already considering another round of financing “to ensure that we can move towards global deployment,” he said.

Denmark gets about 40% of its electricity from wind power, but often cannot use all the power generated at night when demand is lower. The problem has been magnified in 2021 as wind speeds have been lower than normal and energy prices have skyrocketed in Europe.

Hyme, a spin-off of nuclear startup Seaborg Technologies Aps, expects its storage facility to be able to hold power at a cost of about $ 20 / kWh and store it for 14 days without losing a significant amount of heat. The company has developed its method using hydroxide salt, a corrosive material known as caustic soda. When heated and melted into a liquid, the hydroxide salt can be used to store and transmit energy at 1/10 the cost of solar salts.

Investors include a number of existing Seaborg owners, including Danish billionaire Anders Holch Povlsen through his investment arm Heartland A / S.

Heartland CEO Lise Kaae expects energy consumption to increase in the coming years and says Hyme has the potential to offer one of the solutions for storing energy from renewable sources.

“Although we know that we invest at a very early stage, we believe that investing in innovation in this area can make a positive difference,” Kaae said by phone.

Source: Bloomberg