PALO ALTO, Calif., January 18, 2022 — Noon Energy Inc. today announced $28 million in Series A financing to commercialize its ultra-low-cost, high energy density carbon-oxygen battery technology for long-duration energy storage. The round was led by Clean Energy Ventures and Aramco Ventures’ new Sustainability Fund, with participation from Emerson Collective, At One Ventures, Mistletoe, Doral Energy-Tech Ventures, TechEnergy Ventures, and others. The funding will enable Noon Energy to grow its engineering, product and business development teams and to accelerate the path to market through critical demonstrations and field deployments.
Solar and wind power are now the lowest-cost electricity sources, but their intermittent nature requires new energy storage technologies to unlock 24/7 year-round zero-emission electricity. However, two key factors – cost and supply chain – remain major roadblocks. Though the DOE has set a recent goal to cut long-duration storage costs by 90% before 2030, according to the IEA, the shortage of critical minerals threatens the scale-up of many clean energy technologies.
Noon Energy has developed a novel carbon-based battery that does not store energy in metals, a significant advantage over battery technologies used today. Instead, it stores energy in carbon and oxygen using nature-based chemistry principles, eliminating the need for hard-to-mine metals including lithium and cobalt, and it requires only 1% of other critical elements compared to lithium-ion batteries.
Offering far greater supply chain security, Noon Energy uses readily available precursors to deliver more than 100 hours of capacity with the highest energy density among storage technologies today – at one-tenth the cost of lithium-ion batteries for long-duration storage. That uniquely high density means a compact footprint three times smaller than today’s lithium-ion batteries.
“Noon Energy’s technology has far greater potential as modular, scalable and low-cost long-duration energy storage than any other approach we’ve ever seen, and therefore can enable any system, from a single home, to an entire grid, to run on 100 percent solar and wind,” said David Miller, Co-founder and Managing Partner at Clean Energy Ventures. “Noon’s approach to long-duration storage is not only inspiring but proven, and we look forward to supporting this world-class team as they continue to scale and enable 100% renewables penetration.”
“This is a very exciting technology as the industry moves further into the energy transition,” said Tibor Toth, Investment Director at Aramco Ventures. “Noon Energy’s technology complements the vision of our new $1.5 billion Sustainability Fund as the world works to meet energy demand while lowering emissions.”
In the past 14 months, the Noon team has achieved a 50x scaleup of the core technology and plans to bring the world’s first carbon-oxygen battery to market to customers in two years. As proof of concept, core components of the technology are already operating onboard NASA’s Mars Perseverance rover in its MOXIE device, which CEO Chris Graves helped develop as part of the NASA team to extract oxygen from the CO2 on Mars.
“Our carbon battery stores energy by splitting CO2, similar to how nature stores energy by photosynthesis. Storage in the same air-abundant molecules that nature itself uses, rather than rare metals, is key to our fundamental advantages in cost, sustainability, and energy density,” said Noon Energy Founder and CEO Chris Graves. “As Noon enters our next stage of rapid growth, we’re incredibly excited to have the support of such mission-driven investors to help us scale our unique long-duration storage technology and unlock the full transition to solar and wind power.”
About Noon Energy
Noon Energy has developed a breakthrough ultra-low-cost battery technology that provides high energy density long-duration storage with the unique fundamental properties needed to enable 100% renewable energy. It will make intermittent solar and wind power available 24/7 year-round at a lower cost than conventional fossil fuel generation. www.noon.energy
