Zero-carbon industrial heat company Rondo Energy has launched two commercial models of its Rondo Heat Battery, which uses electric heating elements, like in a toaster or oven, to turn clean power into high-temperature heat. Rondo says its heat battery is a drop-in replacement for fossil-fired boilers.
The Rondo Heat Battery captures intermittent electricity from solar and wind, stores the energy from that electricity as high-temperature heat in brick materials, and delivers the stored energy on demand as high-temperature heat and/or electricity.
The battery, which is made only of brick and iron, charges in as little as four hours and stores heat energy at temperatures up to 1500C for hours or days, delivering zero-carbon heat for such processes as steel, cement, chemical manufacturing, and low-temperature food processing.
Rondo, which is is backed by Bill Gates-founded Breakthrough Energy Ventures and utility-backed Energy Impact Partners, says its Heat Batteries maintain continuous output power (95% annual capacity factor) while operating on input power as low as 15% capacity factor (four hours a day). It also asserts that a single RHB300 eliminates more than 40,000 tons of CO2 per year – more than is eliminated by 8,700 electric vehicles.
Replacing just the industrial heat used today in California with RHB zero-carbon heat would eliminate five times more CO2 than all of the EVs on the road in the US today – 13.6 million EVs.
Carmichael Roberts, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, said:
The Rondo Heat Battery could prove critical to eliminating emissions, and its commercial availability will help companies turn to its zero carbon heat for their processes.
The Rondo Heat Battery will help companies in industries such as cement, fuels, food and water desalination to begin leveraging the falling costs of renewables without modifying their facilities.
The Oakland-based company says that the battery’s models now available, the RHB100 and RHB300, are fully automatic, charge intermittently either from local wind or solar facilities or from the grid, and deliver heat on demand 24 hours a day.
Rondo is manufacturing its batteries at its facilities in California and has begun commercial deliveries.
