Antora Energy, a U.S.-based company founded in 2017, is focused on developing and deploying thermal battery technology to decarbonize industrial heat and power.

Antora's system uses readily available solid carbon blocks as the storage medium, which are heated to extremely high temperatures using renewable electricity. This stored heat can be used directly to provide industrial process heat or converted to electricity via a high-efficiency thermophotovoltaic (TPV) device.

Antora's first commercial-scale thermal battery project is operational in Fresno, California, and the company has opened a U.S.-based manufacturing facility in San Jose, California to scale production.

Having raised over $230 million in funding, including a $150 million Series B round in 2024, Antora is actively working to expand commercial deployments across the United States and globally.

While the company's product is still in the early stages of development, Antora aims to reach widespread adoption of its thermal battery system in various industrial applications within the next 5 to 10 years.

In March 2023, Antora launched their first demonstration unit to decarbonize Wellhead Electric Company’s natural gas generation facility. In September, it reached the highest storage temperature demonstrated to date at full scale (1,800°C).

The company's technology aims to discharge stored electricity on the order of days, shifting weather-based fluctuation in renewable supply at a cost that Antora claims to be 5% that of lithium-ion batteries.

Antora Energy's business model centers around selling its thermal battery system to industrial clients. The company's pricing structure is based on a price-per-kWh model, with the specific cost varying depending on the scale and unique requirements of each project.

In addition to the thermal battery modules themselves, Antora provides a comprehensive suite of services to support its clients throughout the entire project lifecycle. These services include:

• Power Systems & Grid Interconnection: Integrating the thermal battery system with the client's existing power infrastructure and the electricity grid.
• Heat Transfer Process Equipment: Supplying the necessary equipment to effectively transfer heat from the battery to the industrial processes.
• Balance of Plant Utilities: Providing ancillary utilities and infrastructure required for the smooth operation of the thermal battery system.
• Civil, Structural & Foundations: Managing the civil engineering and construction aspects of integrating the battery system into the client's facility.
• Plant Controls with Facility Integration: Developing and implementing control systems to seamlessly integrate the battery operation with the client's existing facility controls.
• Dispatch Optimization Software: Utilizing software solutions to optimize the charging and discharging of the battery based on energy prices and demand.
• 24/7 Control Center: Offering continuous monitoring and support for the thermal battery system to ensure reliable operation.

By providing this full range of services, Antora aims to simplify the adoption of its thermal battery technology and ensure a smooth transition for industrial clients seeking to decarbonize their operations.

Antora Energy's thermal battery technology stands out from other energy storage solutions due to several key innovations:

• Solid Carbon Block Storage: Unlike conventional batteries that rely on electrochemical reactions, Antora's system stores energy as heat in large blocks of solid carbon. Carbon is an abundant, low-cost, and safe material with good thermal properties.

• High-Temperature Operation: The carbon blocks are heated to extremely high temperatures, up to 2,400°C (4,352°F), which enables the system to store a significant amount of energy in a compact space. This high-temperature capability also makes the technology suitable for addressing the energy needs of heavy industries that require intense heat for their processes.

• Radiative Heat Transfer: Antora has designed its thermal battery to transfer heat via light rather than through the movement of molecules or atoms, as is typical in other thermal storage systems. This innovative approach simplifies the system's design and reduces the need for complex and maintenance-intensive components, leading to a robust and efficient solution.

• Thermophotovoltaic (TPV) Conversion: Antora's thermal battery can output both heat and electricity. It achieves this by using TPV technology, which directly converts the light emitted by the hot carbon blocks into electricity. This eliminates the need for traditional heat engines, like turbines, which are typically less efficient and more complex. Antora has demonstrated TPV devices with an efficiency exceeding 40%, a world record, further enhancing the system's overall efficiency.

• Modular and Scalable Design: Antora's thermal batteries are designed in a modular fashion, allowing for flexible deployment and scalability to meet the varying energy demands of different industrial facilities. The system can be easily scaled from megawatts to gigawatts of power output, making it suitable for a wide range of applications.

Antora Energy has developed a thermal battery system to address the challenge of decarbonizing heavy industries that require high-temperature heat and reliable power. These industries, which include steel and iron, cement, glass manufacturing, refining, and others, are heavily reliant on fossil fuels and account for a significant portion of global greenhouse gas emissions. The intermittent nature of renewable energy sources like wind and solar has made it difficult for these industries to transition away from fossil fuels, as they need a consistent and predictable energy supply. Antora's thermal battery system aims to solve this problem by providing a way to store renewable energy as heat for extended periods and then either deliver it directly as process heat or convert it back into electricity on demand. This enables industrial facilities to take advantage of low-cost, clean electricity from renewable sources while ensuring the reliable energy supply they need to maintain continuous operations.

In the future, Antora also plans to couple their power-to-power system using TPV cells directly to the grid as a way of grid-scale long-duration energy storage with minimal losses compared to existing technologies.