Atlas Power

Atlas Power makes supercapacitors, using a dry electrode process and activated carbon produced from waste. Supercapacitors do what batteries do poorly: absorb and release power in an instant, millions of times, without wearing out. That is precisely what a grid full of wind and solar needs at the fast end, where frequency has to be held steady second by second and a lithium battery is both overqualified and slowly dying.

Dry electrode manufacturing is the part that matters. Coating electrodes without solvents has been the goal across energy storage for years, and very few outfits anywhere have taken it to industrial scale. Doing so takes cost out and takes the solvents and drying energy out with it, in a device that is recyclable and lasts decades. A renewable grid needs storage across every timescale. The seconds are as load-bearing as the hours.