DAYS Highlights

On February 22, 2024, ARPA-E awardee Antora Energy announced a $150 million Series B funding round, led by Decarbonization Partners, for their modular thermal batteries.

ARPA-E awardee Antora Energy recently raised $50 million in a financing round for their solid-state thermal battery. Breakthrough Energy Ventures and Lowercarbon Capital led this financing round, offering further support for Antora’s mission store thermal energy in inexpensive carbon blocks and offer an efficient, cost-effective grid storage solution.

Every year on April 22, we celebrate Earth Day; promoting environmental enthusiasm and efforts to protect our planet’s precious natural resources. As part of ARPA-E’s authorizing authority that established the agency within the Department of Energy, we’re tasked to overcome long-term and high-risk technological barriers in the development of transformative science and technology solutions to address the energy and environmental missions of the Department. Because of this, our projects and programs focus on developing technologies that have the potential to radically improve U.S.

Long-duration electricity storage (LDES) – storage systems that can discharge for 10 hours or more at their rated power – have recently gained a lot of attention and continue to be a technology space of interest in energy innovation discussions. The increased interest stems from a growing appreciation and acknowledgement of the need for “firm” low-carbon energy resources to complement variable renewable generators like wind and solar, and ARPA-E is actively working to increase storage capacity to help fill this need. 

Dr. Scott Litzelman is a Program Director at ARPA-E. We recently sat down with him to discuss how he became interested in energy, his experience working in the industry, and how he’s hoping to transform America’s energy future.

The U.S. Department of Energy has announced the selection of 10 projects as part of a new Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) program, Duration Addition to electricitY Storage (DAYS). Awardees will develop energy storage systems to provide reliable, affordable power to the electric grid for up to 100 hours, enhancing grid resilience and performance. Under Secretary for Science Paul Dabbar announced the DAYS awardees today at the Innovation XLab Energy Storage Summit at SLAC National Laboratory.

When Hurricane Maria struck the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico last September, it took the entire island’s power grid with it. Today, over 95 percent of the island has its power restored, but the rebuilding process is far from finished. Over the long term, many challenges remain — along with some big opportunities to make the grid smarter and more resilient.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) today announced up to $30 million in funding for projects as part of a new Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) program: Duration Addition to electricitY Storage (DAYS). DAYS project teams will build innovative technologies to enable long-duration energy storage on the power grid, providing reliable electricity for 10 to approximately 100 hours.