Skip Technology Inc. Liquid Batteries: Cost Effective Energy Storage
Skip Technology is developing a novel Liquid battery for large, long duration (4-100+ hours) stationary energy storage. Initial generations of the battery will build directly into standard shipping containers and can be used individually or chained together to fit the customer's storage needs.
Our Liquid batteries are incredibly economical. When paired with renewable energy sources, energy from the combined system will cost less than energy from even the cheapest carbon fuels. We need to transition our energy system from fossil fuels to renewables, but the argument right now is whether we as a society can afford to do so. Our energy solution changes the game: with Skip Tech Liquid batteries, we can drive the energy transition purely on economics!
One Skip Tech Liquid battery can power about 35 American homes for about 10 hours (100 kW, 1MWh). That means a space the size of three football fields could hold enough batteries to power a large American city. Ultimately, we can scale our storage to essentially any size system. Our systems are efficient and energy dense: a single large, factory sized battery could power the entirety of New York City.
With the Skip Tech Liquid battery, we as a society can completely transition away from carbon fuels. This applies to any size grid: our batteries are well suited for small, rural microgrids and scale all the way to continental transmission systems. It is critically important that we remove fossil fuels from our energy grid. Energy storage plays a crucial role: long duration energy storage systems (like our Liquid battery) paired with wind and solar generation can displace over 15% of the TOTAL greenhouse gases emitted worldwide.
Distributed grids of all sizes make our energy system more equitable, resilient and less reliant on long-distance transimission networks. These distributed grids can be part of the national grid, and can also be used in off-grid situations: disaster relief operations, isolated settlements (microgrids), mining, military bases. The enabling technology for distributed grids are long duration storage solutions.
The heart of our Liquid battery is our revolutionary Liquid membrane system. This novel technology uses a thin sheet of flowing liquid to separate the primary fuels of the battery. The membrane liquid is constantly recirculated and will never wear out, chemically change, or degrade in performance.
Our fuels are bromine and hydrogen. The hydrogen-bromine chemical reaction is highly energic, completely reversible, and needs no other supporting chemicals in the system. This means there is no degredation of the reaction over time, regardless of cycle speed or number. Hydrogen and bromine are abundant, inexpensive, and present no problematic supply chain issues. Our entire energy storage system is fully recyclable at battery end-of-life.
The liquid membrane cell is an elegant solution. The cell has no moving parts, using specifically engineered baffles and fluid guides to create exactly the motion of the fuel and liquid membrane that provide excellent power and reusability. Our cells are 3D printed using chemically resistant plastic that is commonly used in medical devices. In fact, every component of our liquid membrane cell is built using off-the-shelf components and materials. The complexity lies in the design of the system, not the manufacturing, assembly or use.
You can see a demonstraion of Skip Technology's desktop prototype in this video:
Skip Technology was awarded a Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) in 2019. This grant kickstarted development of the Liquid membrane energy storage system.
In 2023, we were awarded the Phase II portion of this SBIR for an additional $1mm in non-dilutive funding.
Skip Technology was the winner of the Bend Venture Conference 2021 for Impact companies. We have benefited tremendously from their expertise and guidance, and look forward to continuing our work with them as we continue on this journey!
You can watch our pitch at BVC 2021 here:
We're excited to share that we were awarded the Oregon Technology Award for 2023! It was a pleasure to spread the news about energy storage and a big thank you to the Technology Association of Oregon.
We're proud to have received investments from our institutional partners; their advice and expertise continues to help us build our energy storage business.
Skip Technology was founded in 2018 by Dr. Ben Brown and Dr. Brennan Gantner. They lived together through graduate school and have been friends for almost twenty years. They named their company after the bus line they shared each day on the way to and from the university, the Skip.
Ben has a Physics degree from Harvey Mudd College and a Ph.D. in Astrophysics from Univerity of Colorado Boulder. He is an expert in fluid dynamics, computer modeling and programming. He is routinely awarded time on NASA's biggest supercomputers for his research.
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Brennan has a physics degree from Santa Clara University and a Ph.D. in Astrophysics from the University of Colorado Boulder. He is an expert in prototype designing and building, as well as project management. He designed, built and launched a sounding rocket for his doctoral thesis.
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Maddy has a degree in Mechanical Engineering from University of Portland and a Ph.D. in Material Science from Montana State University. She is an expert in fuel cells, corrosion studies, coating technologies and material design/manufacturing.
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Andrew Selby qualified as a Chartered Accountant in South Africa in 1991 and then spent a career in Investment Banking in Hong Kong, London and South Africa. He worked in a number of top international investment banks, with a career culmination at Barclays Capital, setting up what became the top investment bank in Africa. He has served in numerous capacities for non profit organizations, including setting up a scholarship program for South African students.
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Heidi has a Master's in Physics from Washington State University. She has a passion for renewable energy and wants to be part of the coming transition to a more electrified society.
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Jessie Kline has a background in Chemistry and leading both the business and research sides of several previous technology startups.
Lieko is a renewable energy expert with over 10 years experience at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in Golden, CO. She is focused on developing testing and proving grounds for innovative automated home energy management systems and control strategies for cost-effective systems that integrate smoothly with home area networks and smart grids.
LinkedInTim has extensive experience in the power and renewable energy industries in Africa, Europe, India, the USA and China. Tim was president of Prudent Energy and CEO of VRB Power Systems, which commercialized the vanadium flow battery energy storage technology. He has served on the boards of several public companies and holds a Master of Science in Engineering. He is a professional engineer and has 65 patents related to smart grids and energy storage.
LinkedInBartlett is an attorney and businessman with over twenty years of experience across a broad range of academic research, complex litigation, mediation, transactional and contract work focused on business outcomes.
LinkedInLaura served as a senior executive in marketing, sales and business development for both startups and Fortune 500 companies. She has an MBA and BS in chemical engineering and has worked in a broad array of technology-based markets.
LinkedInKaren has served as a senior executive and consultant in the clean energy industry for nearly 20 years. She advises energy sector companies across North America on clean energy program design, customer engagement, and performance improvement, and has extensive experience with energy efficiency and distributed energy resources technologies and programs. Karen is a nationally recognized expert in market transformation – a strategic approach to accelerating widespread market adoption of emerging technologies. She holds a master’s degree in management science from the MIT Sloan School of Management and a bachelor’s degree in economics from Emory University.
LinkedInRob recently concluded 10 years as a lead investment banker with The Corum Group – a premier IB serving the lower middle market. During his tenure, Rob successfully completed over 20 technology company sell-side transactions. He has broad Strategic Development skills encompassing over 40 years of executive and entrepreneurial experience in multiple technologies: Integrated circuit testing, industrial process automation & control, communications software, security software, and energy software & services. His skills focus on enhancing competitiveness, increasing revenues, and improving customer relationships.
LinkedInWe're a small company in Portland, OR and are always on the lookout for more talented people who want to join us in any capacity. If you want to work, invest, watch or just cheer on Skip Technology please let us know!