15 | Mike Marshak — Founder & CEO, Otoro Energy

🍣🐟 "Operating the electric grid without energy storage is sort of like operating a sushi restaurant without a refrigerator." Tune into this episode to find out what Otoro Energy's CEO Michael Marshak means by that in conversation with BioZen Batteries CEO Nate Kirchhofer. Then, stick around to learn about Otoro's key innovation in higher-voltage, non-flammable, highly-stable, aqueous-soluble metal-chelate flow battery electrolyte liquids that just might be so non-toxic you could drink them (not that you should). For flow batteries, Mike points out, we need to think about the total power capacity, the duration that you can operate at that power, and also the location for storage—not to mention being able to combine all of those things together with cost, safety, scalability, raw materials abundance, efficiency, and more, to make a complete economic picture.

Also, because of the decoupling of power and energy (just like how a car's engine and gas tank provide the cars's power and energy, respectively), there are scalability advantages for flow batteries. But, one of the clearest needs is lower-cost electrolyte liquids because the cost of the dominant incumbent, vanadium, has fluctuated dramatically enough to undermine long-term massive deployment.

It's also worth innovating not just on the core chemistry for energy storage, but the commercialization and path to market as well: even though the utility markets that want to see $0.05/kWh LCOS are huge, that low payout could undermine profitability. Islands, microgrids, and remote installs might be more well suited—but then again they are difficult to access—so maybe the answer lies in places like Texas during the summer time? Burning man? "One of the challenges I think with batteries is that they're fundamentally boring. If they're working properly, you don't notice them until they fail." How do you market something like that? Tune in to find out!

Recorded 25 August 2023.

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