Episode Summary
Executive Summary: Jason Jacobs interviews Andrew Ponnick, co-founder/CEO of Antora Energy, about building thermal batteries for grid-scale and industrial decarbonization. Andrew explains why lithium-ion alone can’t solve multi-day storage or industrial heat, how Antora uses high-temperature solid carbon, thermal radiation, and thermophotovoltaics, and why industrial customers in wind- and solar-rich regions are the beachhead market.
Main Topics: Antora’s mission and product: Antora is developing a low-cost thermal battery to decarbonize industrial power and heat by storing renewable electricity as heat and converting it back into electricity or process heat on demand. Andrew’s origin story and company formation: Andrew traces his path from climate interest in Oregon, to Stanford, to founding Dragonfly Systems, to returning to school and meeting co-founder Justin Briggs, where they broadened then narrowed the problem to energy storage. Why lithium-ion is insufficient for the full grid transition: The conversation emphasizes that lithium-ion is strong for short-duration storage but is too expensive for multi-day storage and cannot address industrial heat, leaving a gap for longer-duration technologies. Antora’s technical approach: Antora’s system uses electricity to heat solid carbon at very high temperatures, leverages thermal radiation to move heat, and uses photovoltaic cells as a solid-state heat engine to convert radiant heat back to electricity. Go-to-market and industrial beachhead: Andrew says the most immediate market is industrial customers—especially food processing and fuels—located in regions with abundant renewables and low or negative power prices, where Antora can replace natural gas CHP. Financing, risk, and business model: The team is exploring customer ownership, heat/power purchase agreements, and debt-financed project structures, with the long-term expectation that project finance will be primarily debt-backed. Risks, policy, and long-term outlook: Andrew cites carbon pricing, regulatory/market signals, and execution risk as major determinants of success, while stressing the need to build trust with industrial operators around uptime and integration.
Key Arguments: Multi-day storage is fundamentally a cost problem, not a discharge-duration problem; lithium-ion can discharge slowly, but it becomes too expensive at 100+ hour scales. A renewables-heavy electricity system needs storage to bridge multi-day periods of low sun and wind, especially as firm fossil assets retire. Thermal storage is attractive because electricity can cheaply create heat, carbon is inexpensive and stable at high temperatures, and high-temperature thermal radiation enables efficient heat movement. Using thermophotovoltaic conversion avoids the size and efficiency limitations of steam turbines and makes the system scalable like solar PV. Industrial customers are the best near-term market because they need both electricity and heat, face significant energy costs, and can benefit from low-cost renewable power plus dispatchable thermal output. Antora’s system can compete mainly against natural gas CHP and grid electricity/natural gas combinations, not against lithium-ion batteries, which serve a different use case. Carbon pricing would materially accelerate adoption by making clean alternatives more competitive and changing industrial decision-making. The biggest adoption barrier is often integration and uptime trust, not core price competitiveness. The industrial market is large enough to support long-term company growth, while utility-scale storage remains a future expansion opportunity.
Data Points: MCJ membership size: more than 1,300 members - Jason describes the Slack-based membership community for climate peers. Climate community screening criteria: 4 criteria - Determination, ambition, optimism, and collaborative spirit are used to screen applicants. Earliest acquaintance timing: about 3 years ago - Jason says he met Andrew early in his climate journey around three years prior. Lithium-ion cost gap vs. long-duration need: factor of 10–20 - Andrew says lithium-ion was roughly this far off the mark for the cost target of long-duration storage. Target long-duration storage cost: $10 to $20 per kilowatt hour - Andrew describes the full-system installed cost target for multi-day storage. Expected lithium-ion installed system cost ceiling: $75 to $100 per kilowatt hour - Andrew says lithium-ion would remain too expensive for long-duration use cases. Potential lithium-ion cell/pack cost ceiling: $50 per kilowatt hour and below - He references this as the lower-cost future needed to make lithium-ion competitive in some longer-duration scenarios. Solar/wind curtailment or negative-price context: 20% to 30% of the time - Andrew notes some industrial sites see negative energy prices this frequently near wind-rich nodes. Industrial emissions share: about a quarter to a third - Andrew estimates industrial heat and power account for this share of global emissions. Carbon price in Canada: recently passed and stepping up over time - Used as an example of policy shifting industrial decarbonization behavior. Workhorse prototype size: a few hundred kilowatt hours - Current early-stage prototype system scale. Pilot project size: 100 megawatt hour - Planned pilot with Wellhead Electric in California, partly funded by the California Energy Commission.
Pivotal Quotes: "Antora is decarbonizing industrial power and heat with a new type of thermal energy storage." — Andrew Ponnick: Concise definition of the company’s mission and product. "The real challenge is cost. ... what they're really talking about is: can you have something that can discharge for 100 plus hours, but that still has a cost per kilowatt... competitive with other types of power capacity on the grid." — Andrew Ponnick: Explains why long-duration storage is hard and why lithium-ion falls short. "The top priority for us is decarbonizing industry." — Andrew Ponnick: Defines the company’s strategic north star and end-state vision.
Implications: Antora’s model suggests industrial decarbonization may be one of the clearest near-term paths for long-duration storage. If carbon pricing and project finance mature, thermal batteries could become a scalable alternative to natural gas for both heat and power.