EGEB: These vitality storage startups simply obtained a giant money injection

In at the moment’s Electrek Inexperienced Vitality Transient (EGEB):

Battery supplies and second-life battery recycling trailblazers simply secured hundreds of thousands in VC funding.
The Biden administration desires to interchange fossil gas subsidies with clear vitality incentives.
Neighborhood photo voltaic market PowerMarket launches a redesigned web site.
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Vitality storage innovators

Boston-based Clean Energy Ventures, a $110 million enterprise capital agency that invests in early-stage local weather tech startups, is pouring cash into the vitality storage sector for the primary time. The corporate introduced at the moment that it’ll put money into battery supplies (Volexion) and second-life battery recycling (Nth Cycle) startups.

Chicago-based Volexion, which is almost three years outdated, is a developer of graphene (pictured above) coating for lithium-ion batteries. It’s receiving $2.2 million in funding, led by Clear Vitality Ventures and Energy Foundry, a Chicago-based enterprise capital platform that invests in vitality innovators. Volexion will use the cash to scale its know-how and enhance battery efficiency for battery cell producers.

Volexion was based by Professor Mark Hersam, director of the Northwestern College Supplies Analysis Heart and a MacArthur Fellow, who found that coating battery cathodes with graphene can enhance battery efficiency. Volexion’s graphene coating acts as a protecting layer round battery cathode supplies to suppress materials and electrolyte degradation. Battery cells with Volexion’s coating can see a 30% enhance in vitality density, 40% enhance in energy density, and run twice so long as non-coated lithium-ion batteries.

Beverly, Massachusetts-based Nth Cycle is a developer of a recycling know-how that extracts essential metals from batteries for a second life. It’s receiving $3.2 million in seed funding led by Clear Vitality Ventures. Nth Cycle will use the cash to execute their know-how street map and deploy a number of pilot initiatives with recyclers and mine operators in early 2022.

Nth Cycle makes use of an environmentally pleasant course of referred to as electro-extraction to recuperate cobalt and different minerals from discarded batteries, mining ores, and waste utilizing solely electrical energy and carbon filters. Electro-extraction is a cleaner, lower-cost various to the standard pyrometallurgy and hydrometallurgy processes utilized by battery recyclers and mining firms to recuperate cobalt, nickel, and manganese for brand new battery manufacturing. This know-how expands the round provide chain of essential minerals for the clear vitality transition. Nth Cycle’s know-how was developed at Harvard College and Yale College.

US clear vitality incentives

US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen yesterday launched particulars of a tax hike proposal that will substitute fossil gas subsidies with clear vitality incentives. It’s a part of President Joe Biden’s $2.3 trillion infrastructure plan. It consists of incentives to encourage folks to change to electrical automobiles and energy-efficient electrical home equipment.

By eliminating fossil gas tax breaks, Yellen said it might elevate revenues by $35 billion over 10 years. Reuters reports:

One of many prime fossil gas breaks is named intangible drilling prices, which permits producers to deduct most prices from drilling new wells. The Joint Committee on Taxation, a nonpartisan congressional panel, has estimated that ditching it might generate $13 billion over 10 years.

The Biden tax plan would advance clear electrical energy manufacturing by offering a 10-year extension of the manufacturing tax credit score and funding tax credit score for clear vitality technology, resembling wind and solar energy, and energy storage resembling superior batteries. It additionally creates a tax incentive for long-distance transmission strains to ease motion of electrical energy from clear vitality turbines.

The plan would restore a tax on polluters to pay for Environmental Safety Company prices related to Superfund poisonous waste websites, addressing hurt brought on by fossil gas manufacturing.

And although the fossil gas business is protesting as anticipated, Bloomberg experiences, as per the Treasury, that eliminating its subsidies would influence solely earnings:

Analysis suggests little influence on gasoline or vitality costs for US customers and little influence on our vitality safety.

PowerMarket

US neighborhood photo voltaic web site PowerMarket has redesigned their web site. Customers will see an inventory of companions which are tailor-made to their native area on its homepage. Residents in New York, New Jersey, Maine, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island can presently join neighborhood photo voltaic by means of PowerMarket.

The positioning is clear – it tells you what number of “spots” are remaining on every neighborhood photo voltaic venture and could be very consumer pleasant. Click on on the hyperlink above to test it out and presumably join.

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