Antora Energy Inc., a startup that has developed a way of storing energy as heat inside carbon blocks, is opening a major manufacturing plant in San Jose.
The 50,000-square-foot facility will serve as the initial production line for the Sunnyvale startup's so-called thermal batteries, it said in a news release Tuesday. The company expects to produce its first batteries at the plant next year.
California is not only Antora's home, but the state government — along with the U.S. Department of Energy — provided crucial support early on for the company, CEO Andrew Ponec said in the news release.
"We are proud that Antora's first thermal battery manufacturing facility will be located in the state and country that made our company possible," he said.
It was unclear where the factory will be located. A company representative didn't immediately respond when asked.
Antora's system is designed to store excess energy generated by renewable sources such as wind turbines and solar arrays. Its system converts the electricity to heat, then stores that in its bricks at temperatures of 1,500 degrees Celsius or higher. Its system can then release the heat for industrial uses or convert the energy back into electricity.
The company's factory announcement comes about six weeks after Antora announced it had a demonstration system in operation in Fresno.
"Our product is now proven and ready to scale," Ponec, who is also a co-founder of the company, said in the new release.
Antora intends to build larger manufacturing plants for its carbon blocks in the future, it said.
In addition to the blocks, Antora's energy storage and conversion system is built around thermophotovoltaic, or TVP, cells. Those cells function much like solar arrays, but instead of converting light from the sun to electricity, they convert the light generated from extreme heat sources. The company plans to use them to convert the energy stored in its thermal batteries back into electricity.
The company is manufacturing TVP cells at its Sunnyvale headquarters, where it has the capacity to make 2 megawatts worth annually. That makes it the largest maker of the cells worldwide, it has said.
Backed by StartX, Impact Science Ventures and the TomKat Center for Sustainable Energy at Stanford University, Antora has raised $57.4 million in venture funding to date, according to PitchBook. Its investors valued it at $109 million as part of 2021 funding round.
