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State-of-the-Art Storage

By Beacon Staff

COLUMBIA FALLS – After nearly three years of development in its Columbia Falls facility, Zinc Air Inc. is poised to release a state-of-the-art battery technology that could revolutionize the global energy grid and vault the local company to the forefront of a trillion-dollar market.

The company’s team of scientists and engineers has finished work on its advanced battery modules that can store large amounts of energy generated by existing utilities and renewable sources like wind and solar. The Zinc Redox battery is designed to provide a low-cost, environmentally safe solution to vast inefficiencies and imbalances within the energy grid. It could also provide renewable sources, like wind farms, a new ability to store unused energy that could be used later.

Research shows roughly 56 percent of all energy generated in the U.S. is wasted, leading to billions of dollars of lost potential largely because there has not been an efficient way to store output that is not immediately used.

“You hear it often, ‘This is something that could change the world.’ But we honestly believe we have the opportunity to do that,” Chief Technical Officer Ron Brost told a large crowd of onlookers at an open house inside Zinc Air’s facility on U.S. Highway 2 West last week.

Zinc’s batteries will be able to individually store enough energy to run roughly 140 homes for an hour. The company plans to officially unveil and deploy them off site in April. A company official said Zinc is negotiating with several utility companies and different energy generation markets that are interested in acquiring the battery modules, which are 8 feet wide, almost 10 feet tall and fit into 20-foot-long shipping containers.

“We feel we are positioned to be a market leader in that large of an industry,” Kevin Waldher, Zinc’s vice president and business development chief, told the Beacon before the presentation.

Almost 100 visitors who attended this latest open house were introduced to a technological milestone that traces its roots back to Edison. “The Father of Electricity,” Thomas Edison, said in 1910, “When we learn how to store electricity, we will cease being apes ourselves.”

The ability to store large amounts of energy has indeed stumped scientists and engineers from the beginning of Edison’s discovery.

In the late 1970s, amid the nation’s energy crisis, the newly created U.S. Department of Energy attempted to solve the energy-storage predicament, primarily through emerging battery technology. Over a 10-year span, scientists investigated the capabilities of electrochemistry and materials that could be manufactured. The research led to significant innovations, but only on a small scale. The battery technology that emerged was similar to the AA and AAA batteries that power small electrical devices. But scientists fell short of discovering something large enough – and safe enough – that could address dense energy storage.

Zinc acquired the technology more than three years ago and its world-class team of scientists and engineers began refining it. They focused heavily on the chemistry side of battery technology and incorporated zinc, which is a metal by-product in mass supply around the U.S., and iron.

“We turned it from a lab experiment to a large scale project,” said Brost, who previously led battery and fuel cell development for Ford, CODA Automotive and Delphi Automotive.

Zinc officials tout their module’s unique ability to be cost effective and environmentally friendly. Unlike traditional battery technology, which contains corrosive, toxic and even explosive substances, Zinc’s battery is “extremely environmentally safe.”

Kevin Waldher, vice president of business development, answers questions from a group touring the Zinc Air Inc., facility on U.S. Highway 2 south of Columbia Falls as John Lowell, vice president manufacturing and product development, looks on. – Lido Vizzutti | Flathead Beacon

“Truly we can wash our chemistry down the drain. We don’t know of any other battery technology that you can do that,” Waldher said.

Because of this chemical makeup, the battery can be manufactured with mostly plastics and other common materials, which significantly reduces costs.

“This is very exciting. We’ve made a number of milestones in our company and that has allowed us to show the rest of the world what we can do,” Brost said.

Zinc has made it this far primarily with private funding. Roughly 70 percent of Zinc’s ownership is local investors, Waldher said. The company has grown from 14 employees almost two years ago to 45, and that could double within a year, he said.

The company’s advisory board includes Jim Woosley, the former CIA director, Jigar Shah, the former CEO of SunEdison and The Carbon War Room, and Roger Ballantine, the former senior member of former President Bill Clinton’s Climate Change Task Force, among others renowned names.

For more information, go to www.zincairinc.com.