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Electrified Thermal Solutions has a plan to help industry replace natural gas with bricks
The startup has been working to imbue the humble brick with the ability to transform electricity into heat and store it for hours on end.
By altering fire bricks already used in glassmaking and other industries, he and his colleagues at Electrified Thermal Solutions, where he’s co-founder and CEO, have been able to turn them into electrical conductors that can carry a current and transform it into searing heat simply by stacking them atop each other. The company is planning to operate its Joule Hive thermal batteries continuously — “most of industry wants heat 24/7/365,” Stack said — but in order to be cost competitive with natural gas, its customers will have to charge the bricks when electricity prices are low, like when there is excess wind or solar power. “Being able to absorb most of your energy in a few hours is valuable,” he said, allowing companies to take advantage of not just low prices, but also incentives from grid operators for being flexible about when they use electricity.
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