Elestor CEO Hylke van Bennekom outlines future vision

Every year comes with new opportunities, but never before have they seemed as great as they do this time around. I took over as Chief Executive Officer of Elestor on 1 January and we’re already on track to achieve great things as a company.

Elestor has been around for about a decade, and now we’re ready for the third phase of our growth plan. During this phase, we will identify and develop the most robust, cost-effective and desirable engineering solutions that will enable partners and customers to introduce and integrate our technology into their existing and future operations.

Or to put it more succinctly; we’re transitioning from a research-based company to an engineering-focused company that will deliver value to our partners and customers, as well as to society more broadly.

So far, we’ve basically built the company’s foundations. We’ve done this during two phases: One, as a start-up focusing on original research and scientific exploration of hydrogen-based flow battery technologies. Two as an applied research and development growth company searching for specific technological solutions to complex sets of challenges. This, the third phase in our growth plan, is also the one that will make Elestor a commercially viable corporation.

We’re ready to do this because the first two phases of our development and growth plan resulted in the creation of a hydrogen-based, large-scale, long-duration flow battery solution. We have chosen to develop this technology in engineering settings during phase 3 because we believe it is optimal when benchmarked against a complex set of criteria.

The technology we will develop in engineering settings during phase three has been carefully selected based on a set of complex criteria, ranging from commercial considerations presented by clients and industry partners, to availability of the required materials, which must be abundant, to scientific, technical and societal criteria.

In other words, we are going ahead with an optimal solution that is scientifically responsible, financially prudent, and perfectly aligned with both societal and customer objectives.

What this means in the real world is this: We have come up with a robust, affordable and scalable way to store electricity produced by solar panels and wind turbines. This will help speed up the energy transition from fossil fuels to renewables.

But we’re not there just yet. We know we’re in for a turbulent period as we scale back our pure research capabilities and gear up our capacity in areas such as chemical and electronic engineering, processes and logistics, business development. But we are in control of our destiny.

We have a solid management team, we have employed some of the best people in our industry, and, following a recent 30 million euros investment by a consortium led by Equinor, we’re fully funded.

As such, we can afford to operate in a pre-revenue state throughout this third phase, as outlined in our business plan and approved by both our industrial partners and investors. They have our back because they know that it’s worth waiting for what we’ll eventually deliver: A gateway to a new robust and renewable energy system, that will deliver clean air, green jobs, economic growth and healthy returns in the years and decades ahead.

About Elestor

The Dutch based company Elestor BV has introduced an innovative electricity storage technology for large scale stationary applications, based on hydrogen flow battery technology. With this, the electricity storage costs (aka Levelized Cost of Storage) are reduced to an absolute minimum.

Low cost, abundant and environmentally friendly materials are used, combined with a patented system design and easy to manufacture and compact cells. This triple cost reduction strategy enables viable business cases in the LDES (‘Long Duration Electricity Storage’) domain, essential to stimulate the adoption of electricity storage and accelerate the energy transition.

In the end game the technology has the potential to substitute gas-fired power plants at GWh scale in the form of a ‘bi-directional power plants’, and has all the properties to become the equivalent in LDES of what Lithium ion is today for mobility.

Elestor is named as one of the 10 most innovative companies in the Netherlands, in an assessment of 600 companies. The Dutch Innovation Award is an initiative of the Amsterdam Centre for Business Innovation (University of Amsterdam).

In 2022, Elestor concluded a 30M€ Series A investment in a round led by Equinor, with also Vopak, Invest-NL and Somerset Capital Partners joining the investors team.

Press contact:       

E-mail info@elestor.com

Tel  +31 6 239 11 572