phelas secures 600,000 euros in pre-seed financing and funding for the development of its energy storage system with a new technology for air liquefaction. The investors come from BayStartUP's investor network, among others, and bring their experience as business angels and entrepreneurs to the partnership.
Germany's electricity is increasingly coming from renewable sources. Storing wind and solar energy remains one of the biggest challenges. With its novel large-scale electrical storage system "Aurora", the Munich-based startup phelas aims to solve precisely this problem and help the energy transition achieve a breakthrough. The six-member founding team has now secured pre-seed financing of 600,000 euros as well as funding. The investors include experienced business angels from the BayStartUP investor network who are successful founders and entrepreneurs themselves. Contacts to investors were also established via the Venture Forum Neckar. The basis of the solution is a specially developed technology for air liquefaction. It enables the future use of solar and wind power even when the sun is not shining, the wind is not blowing and there are no nuclear or fossil fuel power plants available. With the capital raised, the founding team now wants to further develop the technology, drive forward the construction of the proof-of-concept and win the first customers as partners.
Thomas Bodmer, investor from the BayStartUP investor network
The international growth prospects for the phelas energy storage system are phenomenal. Bloomberg NEF forecasts a 537 billion euro market for stationary energy storage by 2040 as the energy sector decarbonizes.
Justin Scholz, Co-Founder of phelas:
The energy transition is in full swing. Our goal is to make it a global success. This will only succeed if renewable energies become both the most economical and the most reliable supply option. To achieve this, it is becoming increasingly important to be able to store large quantities of energy cheaply and sustainably. Our energy storage technology can make an important contribution to this.
Innovative technology for more storage capacity
phelas uses ambient air as a storage medium. This is liquefied and the energy stored in the process. In the first step, a compressor compresses the air. This generates heat, which is stored in a special reservoir for the reconversion process. In its liquid state, the air can be stored for up to several weeks. When the electricity is then needed, the air is heated and evaporated. For this purpose, heat is supplied to it from the internal heat accumulator. Finally, when the air evaporates, a strong pressure is created that drives a turbine to generate electricity. The cold produced during evaporation is also fed into a separate cold accumulator and can then be used for the next storage cycle to liquefy the air.
The Aurora energy storage system uses air and gravel as the main storage medium – both substances are universally available and less hazardous than lithium ions. As a result, the technology offers a decisive cost advantage for large amounts of energy to be stored, while at the same time providing high cycle stability and excellent environmental compatibility. Since the storage system is based on already developed and proven technologies such as compressors, cryotanks and turbine technology, the entire system can be operated very reliably and with low maintenance. The envisaged electricity storage system consists of at least one power module with an electrical charging or discharging capacity of 1.5 or 1.2 megawatts and at least one storage module with an electrical storage capacity of 2 megawatt hours. Both modules have so far been installed in standard shipping containers, for example, to ensure a high degree of modularity and transportability.
Leon Haupt, Co-Founder of phelas:
The electricity generation costs of renewable energies are currently falling below 1 EURct/kWh. Thus, the challenge in the future lies more in the cost-effective provision of energy than in its efficient storage. The design of our solution enables particularly cost-effective energy storage projects below 200 EUR/kWh, based on total project costs including on-site installation with a discharge duration of more than 4h. It is thus competitive with currently available lithium-ion and vanadium redox flow battery technologies already in the early production phase.
Interdisciplinary founding team
The founding team of phelas is interdisciplinary. Justin Scholz, a materials scientist and software specialist with startup experience, and Christopher Knoch, a former management consultant, are responsible for corporate development, financing and recruiting. Leon Haupt, who has a degree in energy engineering, specializes in energy storage and drives technical and economic modeling as well as customer contact. Technology development is the responsibility of ex-ESA/NASA project scientist Dr. Masoud Ghods, with his expertise in the application of artificial intelligence, together with physicist Dr. Pit Sippel. Florian Kaufmann, who holds a PhD in process engineering, supports the development of the pilot plant with his knowledge in process simulation.