29 | Constantin Eis & Giovanni Damato — CEO & US President, CMBlu Energy

🐳 Why doesn’t Nature store energy using metal? And what does it use? And how many kWh of energy per liter is stored in a Blue Whale?! For answers, we turn to the dynamic duo of Constantin Eis (CEO, CMBlu Energy AG—the mothership) & Giovanni Damato (President, CMBlu Energy, Inc.—the CA, US manufacturing subsidiary) who sit down (in person!) with BioZen’s CEO Nate Kirchhofer at RE+ in Anaheim, CA—the most comprehensive clean energy industry event in North America.

This discussion covers the “secret sauce” working mechanism of CMBlu’s flagship Organic SolidFlow technology, combining elements of both flow batteries and solid state energy storage, as well as its advantages in:

• safety (no fire)
• sustainability (recyclable earth-abundant conflict free materials)
• security (local, mature, vertically integrated supply chains)
• footprint (efficient built environment; stack vertically)
• flexibility / modularity (separate scaling of power and energy)
• serviceability (conventional parts for repairs and (de)commissioning)

Hear about CMBlu’s market traction, including pilot projects with WEC Energy Group in Wisconsin, Salt River Project in Phoenix Arizona, and the DOE and National labs—not to mention their first commercial order by Mercedes.

Stick around for more info about the Organic SolidFlow battery cycle life and its “Depots” and “Shuttles”, its differentiation from lithium ion technology, audacious goals of getting to $0.01/kWh LCOS, some thoughts on the petroleum industry, and advice on relentless pursuit of innovation: "I think what we needed to learn is that no one is really waiting for you apparently, so you really need to do it by yourself."

We also discuss the continued positive impacts of the 2022 IRA and BIL, trends in utilities’ energy storage going from current 4h discharge to 8h+, forecasts for 2035 and even 50 years from now, and some things that surprised Giovanni and Constantin during the commercialization process.

[Recorded 10 Sept 2024]