Google’s Alphabet Creates Energy Storage Subsidiary

Alphabet spins off renewable energy storage facility startup Malta with Gates’s BEV fund backing

Anna Domanska, December 26, 2018 (Industry Leaders)

“…[Malta Inc., which was launched in 2017 by Google parent company Alphabet’s experimental X lab as Project Malta,] aims to revolutionize energy storage facilities using a novel grid-scale architecture which generates energy from a mixture of molten salt and antifreeze…Malta will in the coming months build a megawatt-scale pilot plant…[to test] an electro-thermal storage system that can reserve power generated from fossil fuels or renewable energy far longer than lithium-ion batteries…[It uses] electrical energy to drive a heat pump. The process converts the energy into thermal energy or heat which is stored in molten salt…When the grid needs electricity, the heat is converted back to electricity using a heat engine…

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The electro-thermal storage system can store electricity for as long as weeks…[Bill Gates’s Breakthrough Energy Ventures (BEV)] $1 billion fund led the Malta] $26 million Series A. Investors led by Breakthrough Energy Ventures include Jeff Bezos, John Doerr, Michael Bloomberg, Ray Dalio, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, and Alibaba’s Jack Ma. Other investors include industrial company Alfa Laval of Sweden and solar and wind power developer Concord New Energy Group of Hong Kong…Malta’s goal is to produce the cheapest large-scale energy storage facilities…” click here for more

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