Tesla co-founder and CTO, JB Straubel, has announced his company has invested in a new energy storage start-up, Axiom Energy.
Axiom builds energy storage systems for businesses, primarily grocery stores, which have large-scale refrigeration requirements.
Grocery stores have a strong reliance on refrigeration and backup power in case of outages as they have to keep the refrigeration running to protect perishable goods.
Axiom uses a system called ‘The Refrigeration Battery’ a thermal system, which works by using the current refrigeration system’s excess capacity to freeze a tank of salt water at night which can then be used to give six hours of an average grocery store’s refrigeration-based electricity load.
Axiom Energy’s president and co-founder, Amrit Robbins said: “Central refrigeration accounts for 9.1% of electricity consumption in US commercial buildings. Energy storage for addressing peak demand needs, load shifting and backup power is critical for this multi-billion-dollar slice of the energy pie.”
The company has just received $2.5 million from a new round of funding from investors like Element 8 Fund, MIT Angels, and angel investors like Tesla’s CTO, JB Straubel.
In a press release Straubel said: “Energy storage is a key technology that is enabling the ongoing deployment of renewables on the grid. Axiom Exergy has developed a compelling solution that provides unique distributed energy benefits and delivers immediate value to supermarkets and cold storage facilities.”
