In some ways, getting rid of fossil fuels is relatively simple. house? Replace your furnace with a heat pump. Cars and light trucks? Ditch the internal combustion engine for batteries and electric motors. However, in many industries, such as cement, steel manufacturing, etc., it is difficult to replace the calorific value of fossil fuels.
But Dan Stack thinks bricks could be successful.
Stack has been working for a decade to give humble bricks the ability to convert electricity into heat and store it for hours. By altering fire bricks already used in glass manufacturing and other industries, he and his colleagues at Electrified Thermal Solutions, his co-founder and CEO, were able to turn them into electrical conductors that can carry an electric current and convert it into searing heat. stacked on top of each other.
The company is currently conducting elevator-scale demonstrations and is using that data to prepare larger, commercial-scale devices.
“We’ve logged thousands of hours now,” Stack told TechCrunch. Because ETS’ bricks are based on conventional refractory bricks, they should be able to provide heat for many years, he said. “These bricks have been used to see temperatures above 1,700 degrees Celsius for decades.”
The company plans to continue operating its Joule Hive thermal batteries. “Most industries want heat 24/7,” Stack said. But to be cost-competitive with natural gas, customers must charge the bricks when electricity is available. Prices are low, as is the case with excess wind or solar power.
“It’s valuable to be able to absorb most of the energy in a few hours,” he said. This allows companies to take advantage of not only lower prices but also incentives from grid operators to be more flexible when it comes to power usage.
In some regions where renewable energy is abundant and natural gas is expensive, “we can provide a return on investment for these systems compared to natural gas that our customers are currently burning,” he said. “We are seeing more and more signs that we can compete head-on with fossil fuels in more areas.”
ETS is first targeted at industries that require large amounts of heat, but not the hottest temperatures. Currently, this includes drying, steam generation and cement calcining. Over time, Stack said the company will be able to reach temperatures of 1,800°C, allowing the bricks to be used in other industries, such as steel manufacturing. Eventually, the heat from the bricks could help run turbines in natural gas power plants, displacing fossil fuels.
Stack said the startup plans to begin commercial-scale demonstrations in mid-2025. To achieve this milestone, ETS raised $19 million in what the company calls pre-Series A funding, the company told TechCrunch exclusively. The round included investments from Clean Energy Ventures, Clean Energy Venture Group, EDP Ventures, GVP Climate, Holcim Maqer Ventures, Mass Ventures, Starlight Ventures, TechEnergy Ventures, Tupras Ventures and Vale Ventures.
