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I am the cofounder at Airthium (YC S17), we make a seasonal energy storage system based on green ammonia and thermal storage (molten salts or sand). We are currently developing a low NOx ammonia burner in partnership with UC Louvain in Belgium

Check us out! https://airthium.com



Checking.

It seems more likely that most users will prefer to import ammonia from tropical solar farms, and keep local tankage of just a couple of weeks' worth. It is hard to imagine where seasonal storage would be needed.


Global energy supply chain brittleness has come in the foreground recently due to war. I can imagine interest in seasonal storage.


Practically everyone imports what they need, at need, today. Only pipelines have lately been considered a problem. "Strategic National Reserves" are a thing, but thus far only used for economic leverage, to my knowledge. Underground storage of NG is pretty common, but again used mainly for price stability.

But this is not the only place where I see people honestly believing that seasonal storage would be desirable and important. I hope they are not, in the end, disappointed by slack demand.


The long term goal is to replace NG. What we are building is the functional equivalent to a natural gas fired powerplant, without the CO2 emissions.


Yes.

People using NG plants depend on reliably regular deliveries of NG. They should be equally willing to depend on regular deliveries of NH3.


Could u share some of your bizdev journey?

Are potential (commercial) partners willing to engage or is it just PR ?

Are they mostly concerned with projected cost/performance/response?

Is everyone waiting for someone else to build the FOAK?

(FWIW, my own interest is in green heavy transport)

thanks


We are targeting the industrial heat market first.

Our proprietary electric heat engine (=a heat pump) can generate heat up to 1000℉, and we will use it to replace industrial gas boilers and dryers with a CO2 free solution. We are in discussions with multiple potential customers for this product.

The development of the ammonia burner is done in parallel as it will be useful in a few years, when we will be ready to deploy the seasonal energy storage system.

A few companies like Form Energy are starting to deploy their first pilots at scale, let's hope they succeed!




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