Not your average Silicon Valley startup, Imergy Power Systems has a 61-year-old CEO and employees who aren't exactly developing the next Snapchat.
But their work could pay off in a big way. Imergy is essentially developing a battery that never dies, The Atlantic reported. The device stores energy from solar power and wind farms to be used when the weather isn't generating electricity.
Using the naturally occurring element vanadium, the battery has a never-ceasing flow that can keep being reused.
"Basically, our battery lasts forever," Imergy CEO Bill Watkins told The Atlantic.
While vanadium flow batteries were actually invented in 1985, they have been too expensive and too unstable for common use.
"The electrolyte was always the one cost you couldn't squeeze because you needed pure Vanadium," Tim Hennessy, Imergy's president, told The Atlantic. "So the batteries ended up being about 50 percent more expensive."
Imergy has purportedly innovated on the original vanadium flow battery concept, introducing a chemistry that can be used with "lower-grade" vanadium take from iron ore byproduct, oil sludge or fly ash generated by coal-powered power plants.
Along with carmaker Honda and solar installer SolarCity, Imergy is looking to help people make the switch to green energy.
"As more people go solar, they're going to tell their utility, 'I'm not going to sell you my electricity. I'm going to get a battery at low cost to run my home and I don't need the grid,' " said Watkins, as quoted by The Atlantic.
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