Solar thermal battery technology will soon rapidly provide on-site power generation for data centers

Exowatt has announced a new type of autonomous solar power generation, which will be available on a large scale later this year. With $20 million in seed capital from venture investors including Andreesson Horowitz and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, energy startup Exowatt announced that its autonomous solar thermal and energy product will be available this year to its clients. Taking a different approach to the traditional solar panel that directly converts solar energy into electricity, the Exowatt P3 system […]

Exowatt has announced a new type of autonomous solar power generation, which will be available on a large scale later this year.

With $20 million in seed capital from venture investors including Andreesson Horowitz and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, energy startup Exowatt announced that its autonomous solar thermal and energy product will be available this year to its clients. Taking a different approach to the traditional solar panel that directly converts solar energy into electricity, the Exowatt P3 system will store its energy in a thermal battery.

Advantages of the thermal battery

In short, a thermal battery is a high-temperature power source that stores energy in the form of heat. Most importantly, it requires no preparation for use as a power source and has little to no startup time to begin supplying power.

According to Exowatt, its deployment will be able to store energy for up to 24 hours and its entire 3-in-1 modular system will fit into a standard 40-foot shipping container. Unlike traditional sources, the energy is stored as heat, not electricity, and will generate electricity on demand.

How does it work? Each modular container contains three components:

First, a heat collector to capture solar energy.
Second, a heat battery, that stores the collected heat for its energy potential. And third, the Exowatt heat engine, which will convert stored heat into manageable energy.

Because the energy potential is stored as heat and not electricity, storage costs are minimal compared to current battery architectures. The system also does not rely on rare earth elements, a problem associated with high-tech battery implementations.

The cheapest renewable energy solution? Thanks to the 24-hour heat storage capacity of the Exowatt system, energy can be supplied regardless of the time of day or weather conditions.

The company claims that once they supply power at scale, they should be able to generate electricity for as little as 1 cent per kWh ($0.01) – or perhaps even less – making it potentially the cheapest renewable energy solution. It’s time to queue

As it turns out, data centers are gearing up to join this new gold rush in power generation. Exowatt said in its announcement this week that, along with deployments planned for 2024, they have already reserved a portfolio of 500 MW of data center power in the United States.

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Abgineh Pardaz Shargh