Long-duration storage firm gets Series B funding from Chevron, Piva Capital

US long-duration thermal energy storage specialist Malta Inc said Wednesday Chevron Corp’s (NYSE:CVX) venture capital arm and San Francisco-based venture capital firm Piva Capital have joined its oversubscribed Series B round, providing additional capital to advance its commercialisation strategy.

Malta in February raised USD 50 million (USD 42.6m) in Series B funding. The sum has now increased to over USD 60 million with the participation of Chevron Technology Ventures and Piva Capital.

Based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Malta is a start-up incubated at X, the Moonshot Factory of Google’s parent company Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL). The company says that the "electrification of everything" and decommissioning of coal-fired power plants is causing growing demand for long-duration energy storage at grid scale.

"Long-duration energy storage (LDES) is one of the critical enablers for carbon-free electricity 24/7,” said Jeannine Sargent, who is joining Malta’s board of directors.

Malta’s pumped heat energy storage (PHES) system allows electricity from any source to be stored as thermal energy. The technology can store up to 200 hours of energy, the company says.

Malta is looking to develop its first 100-MW long-duration storage project in the 2024/2025 timeframe.

(USD 1 = EUR 0.852)

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