Tackling Climate Change Together
phelas
100 percent renewable energy through innovative liquid air energy storage
The phelas-team is developing Aurora, a standardized, modular, mass-manufactured and cheap large-scale electrical storage system that uses electricity during the charging process to cool air down to cryogenic temperatures and thus liquefy it. For discharging, the cryogenic liquid is heated and thus evaporated. The strong increase in volume and pressure is again used to generate electricity.
With this approach, phelas aims to completely eliminate the need for fossil electricity production. The replacement of coal and gas plants necessitates large electricity storage capacities. Renewable energy sources provide energy only when the sun shines and the wind blows - which is not always. Consequently, energy storage is needed to enable the shift for energy production from renewable sources.
To achieve this ambitious goal, the phelas team works together on three main areas. Justin Scholz with over six years of start-up experience and Christopher Knoch with five years of professional experience as a management consultant work in the areas of business development, financing, recruiting and networking. Leon Haupt brings four years of professional experience in the energy sector and specialises in energy storage as a project manager. He is responsible for the technical-economic modelling as well as the development of business models for energy storage. Three other team members are driving the development, planning and implementation of the demonstrator and pilot plant: Dr. Pit Sippel has many years of experience in setting up and designing experiments, as well as extensive knowledge in the field of energy storage. Dr. Masoud Ghods, a renowned ex-NASA scientist, has in-depth knowledge in design, process modelling and the application of artificial intelligence in engineering. Florian Kaufmann contributes know-how in the field of cryogenic air separation and steady-state and dynamic process simulation. As a team, phelas is characterized by a strong team spirit as well as the common vision: To have a 100 percent renewable electricity grid be a “no brainer”. The team identified storage as the missing puzzle piece – and is building exactly this piece.
With the financial help of public institutions, phelas has already been able to develop and construct a demonstrator in the laboratory of the Technical University Munich. Moreover, the team is preparing to protect their intellectual property as well as simulating use cases. They are on track for the next target: pre-seed funding, with which the prototype will be completed, and the technical concept finalized.
The product Aurora has a very long lifetime of projected 20+ years. As a newcomer, this is a period for which many customers will demand an assurance that the claims regarding endurance are valid. Together with Munich and ERGO, phelas plans to work on feasible insurance solutions for the technology.
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Interviews with start-up founders
Justin and Christopher, with your company, phelas, you want to make the use of renewable energies a no-brainer. Precisely what problem do you want to solve?
Justin Scholz: The problem is paradoxical: On the one hand, mankind is emitting more CO2 than ever before, a large part of which comes from power and heat generation. And it’s doing this, even though clean electricity generation has never been cheaper and continues to become even cheaper. What’s missing is storage facilities for large amounts of wind and solar energy for when the sun isn’t shining and there’s no wind. We want to build these storage facilities with phelas.
So what’s the current situation with the use of electricity from renewables in Germany?
Christopher Knoch: At the moment, electricity from wind and solar power is fed directly into the grid whenever the sun is shining or there’s wind. This electricity has priority under the German Renewable Energy Act. Consequently, when conditions are good, 100 percent of our electricity comes from renewables – and Germany even exports clean electricity. But in the so-called “dark doldrums”, when there’s no wind and it’s dark, our electricity must continue to come from other power sources such as coal or nuclear. If we could store clean electricity over long periods, however, the power of the sun would also be available to us at night.
How does your energy storage system, Aurora, work?
Justin Scholz: Our system uses the established process of air liquefaction to store energy. Electricity from renewables is used to cool air down to around minus 200 degrees Celsius, so that it becomes liquid. The heat produced during charging is stored, so that it can later help the discharging process when the liquid air reverts to its gaseous state and releases energy. The cold that is in turn generated during discharging is also stored, in order to liquefy air again and re-charge the storage unit.
What have been the most important milestones so far?
Christopher Knoch: The idea that we currently have on paper looks easy, but it’s been a long haul. We made the biggest step forward when we realised that we didn’t have to build the most efficient storage unit, but rather the cheapest and most useful. For it costs so little to generate clean electricity that it’s no problem having a slightly less efficient storage unit, as long as it’s cheap, mobile and flexible to use and lasts a long time. So we came up with the idea of putting the storage units in containers. This makes it possible to combine storage units in a modular way and use them in quite different areas of application – for example, right next to a wind power plant or an electric vehicle charging station.
How do you benefit from the EIT Climate KIC programme and the support of ERGO and Munich Re?
Justin Scholz: Other storage unit manufacturers give guarantees for their systems. As a young start-up in the sector, it’s a big help for us to be able talk to experts about this at an early stage. For the possibility of also being able to give our customers guarantees and being insured against possible breakdowns will help us to market our system.
Christopher Knoch: EIT Climate KIC is also helping us to quantify the long-term impact of our storage system. This is so valuable because many potential investors are already watching out for these key figures and waiting for certifications. We’re expecting this trend to continue.
And what are the next steps for your team?
Christopher Knoch: In the course of this year, we want to be able to show the complete system to potential customers and hopefully accept advance orders. To this end, we’re currently finalising a number of simulations, after which we’ll concentrate more on the hardware.