New Hampshire-based company SustainX has received $14.4 million from GE Energy Financial Services (NYSE: GE) and other investors to continue developing its technology for energy storage using compressed air.
Through the GE Ecomagination Challenge’s "Powering the Grid" program, in which SustainX is a partner, GE Energy Financial Services joins Cadent Energy Partners and prior investors Polaris Ventures and Rockport Capital in the new round of venture financing.
To store energy, SustainX compresses air by using electricity to
drive pistons inside cylinders. The resulting high-pressure air is
stored in above-ground vessels. To release energy later, the system uses
stored air to drive the same pistons, which in turn drive an electric
generator. SustainX technology keeps air at a nearly constant
temperature during compression and expansion; this significantly
improves efficiency and reduces the cost of compressed-air energy
storage below that of other above-ground energy-storage options, the company said.
A total of $5.4 million in earlier financing for SustainX came from the Small Business Innovation Research program of the National Science Foundation and from the Energy Storage Program of the US Department of Energy. AES Energy Storage, LLC is working with SustainX to demonstrate a full-size system in the field, capable of storing enough energy to power 1,000 typical US homes.
Analysts estimate that the market for grid-scale energy storage will be $18 billion by 2015. Storage can improve the economics of wind and solar power, improve grid stability, store off-peak energy to be used during on-peak periods, improve the feasibility of microgrids in rural areas, and reduce emissions from the gas-turbine peaker plants presently used to keep electric supply precisely matched with demand.
SustainX was founded in 2007 by engineers at the Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth College.
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A modular approach to CAES that eliminates the need to combust natural gas is a desirable thing. However, it should be noted that the compressed air energy storage (CAES) technology available today is long-proven and ready to be built to address – in a number of regions with the right geology – the same market that SustainX seeks to serve. And quite possibly at a lower cost. Gridflex Energy, LLC is pursuing several such projects for the explicit purpose of integrating renewable resources.