Lithium-ion batteries have transformed the global economy, powering everything from smartphones and laptops to electric vehicles, e-bikes and more. But while costs have plummeted over the past decade or so, they’re still too expensive to power all the ways people need to store energy.
With the advent of cheap solar power, generating electricity has never been cheaper or easier. But solar panels are no good when the sun goes down. In order for solar energy to reach its potential, there must be an affordable way to store that energy.
Lack of affordable energy storage is hindering development in many countries. Although more people than ever have access to electricity, about 3.5 billion still can’t get power reliably, and approx 760 million they have no electricity at all.
“You have a whole generation that can’t study, a whole generation without industry support, not even a small-scale or even micro-enterprise,” Mukesh Chatter, co-founder and CEO of Alsym Energyhe told TechCrunch.
That’s what prompted Chatter, a serial entrepreneur, and his co-founders to start Massachusetts-based Alsym. “The original goal was to light the homes of a billion people around the world who have no access to electricity, who are forced to live a 19th century life and are condemned to poverty. We wanted to break that cycle.”
Chatter has spent the past nine years working with technical co-founders Nikhil Koratkar, Rahul Mukherjee and Kripa Varanasi to develop a low-cost, non-flammable battery chemistry. Now they think they have it figured out.
He won’t divulge the details, but says one electrode is manganese oxide, which is an abundant mineral already produced in mass quantities. The electrolyte is water-based, a departure from the flammable organic solvents used in lithium-ion batteries. In addition, both electrode materials “inherently will not allow dendrite formation,” he said, referring to the sharp crystals that can form on lithium-ion electrodes and short-circuit a cell.
The result is a battery that is less energy dense at the cell level than leading lithium-ion chemistries, but competitive at the pack level. That’s because the cells can be packed closer together and need less safety equipment since they operate more safely at higher temperatures, Chatter said.
Alsym also says its batteries will be cheaper than lithium-ion, thanks to less exotic materials and simpler packaging. The startup is targeting around $50 per kilowatt-hour for its cells, significantly lowering the cost of lithium-ion cells, which are currently $89 per kilowatt hour.
To be clear: Alsym has only produced samples at this point, and its insistence on keeping its technology secret, which is understandable from a business perspective, makes it impossible to test its effectiveness. Alsym’s first finished products will be available in 2025, Chatter says, so it will become apparent if they work.
Alsym is targeting stationary storage as its initial market and plans to pursue a design tailored for two-wheeled electric vehicles, which are popular in India, China and Southeast Asia. After that, another one for plug-in hybrids will be released. The company says it has already signed a deal with a major Indian automaker to supply batteries, though Chatter did not confirm which one.
On Wednesday, the company announced it had raised a $78 million Series C round led by General Catalyst and Tata, the Indian conglomerate, with participation from Drads Capital, Thomvest and Thrive Capital.
Alsym plans to use the new funding to double the team from 50 to 100 and build two production lines, each with a capacity of 1 megawatt hour, to provide samples to customers. Ultimately, it will work with existing battery manufacturers, as Alsym’s batteries can be produced using existing equipment. Chater said the global wave of gigafactory construction has already resulted in excess capacity that his company hopes to tap into.
Chatter already has its eye on other markets, including steel. “Industrial applications are huge applications for stable storage,” he said. “The world produces approximately 2 billion metric tons of steel globally, resulting in 4 billion metric tons of CO2. That’s more than all the passenger cars in the world combined.”
