Liquid Metal Battery Corp Gets Funding From Total and Bill Gates

A new mechanism has been introduced to store energy from renewable sources, said by Liquid Metal Battery Corporation, and is also expected to get huge funding on this project.

The battery tech company, headed by cleantech investor Khosla Ventures has also jumped into this project. They have decided to raise $15 million in a second round of funding. In addition to that, energy company Total and investor Bill Gates are also interested in this project. It looks like the battery tech company is on to something as they are starting to attract some major players for their funding.

MIT Professor, Dr. Donald Sadoway is the founder of company and developed the battery technology. The battery is quite inexpensive and easy to deploy.

“The way things stand today, electricity demand must be in constant balance with electricity supply,” said by Sadoway in March during a technology Entertainment and Design talk titled “The Missing Link to Renewable Energy.”

There are some big problems with renewable energy sources, as they do not allow you to store power in them when you really need it. However, LMBC’s liquid battery has a solution for this problem. Their batteries actually split energy demand from storage whilst enabling clean energy sources to increase the energy generation process. This new technology can be what the renewable energy sector has been searching for these past few years. The ability to store the energy that is produces has always been a serious challenge and now it seems LMBC’s liquid battery could be the solution.

“With a giant battery, we’d be able to address the problem of intermittence that prevents wind and solar from contributing to the grid in the same way that coal and gas and nuclear do today,” Sadoway said.

The biggest plus of these batteries is that you do not need to replace your existing system, and it can be easily installed in your current system. This is an added benefit which makes the system cheaper and affordable. Attracting customers has always been an issue with renewable energy and cost is always the biggest factor. As these batteries start to get a foothold in the market it will definitely attract a clear increase in the user base for these technologies. Also, not having to scrap or modify existing systems is a definite plus as this will undoubtedly be a unique selling point which is sure to turn some heads.

“We need to think about the problem differently. We need to think big. We need to think cheap,” Sadoway said in the TED talk.