Cache Energy’s mysterious white pellets could help kill coal and natural gas
Wind and solar power have become so cheap to install, and at times so abundant, that utilities don’t know what to do with it all. Sometimes they’ll even pay the owners of other power plants not to generate electricity.
In response, scientists and engineers have been racing to find inexpensive ways to store that power for later, ultimately hoping to store renewable energy so that it’s available 24/7 and at a price that’ll put coal and natural gas out of business.
Cache Energy is the latest startup to attempt the feat, and it’s taking a slightly different tack than most. Rather than store power as heat using sand or specially made bricks, Cache is storing it in chemical bonds inside pellets made of lime derived from limestone. Founder and CEO Arpit Dwivedi likes to call the approach “coal without consequences.”
“It’s a low-cost solid that is able to produce heat and can use some of the similar infrastructure built around fossil fuel,” he told TechCrunch.
