A cleantech startup introduced this week that it has raised $50 million to scale distributed photo voltaic expertise — however not for electrical energy manufacturing.
Zero Mass Water creates boxy photo voltaic panels that generate flows of pure, potable water as a substitute of electrons. It presents entry to secure water for houses or companies in arid components of the world or locations with unsafe faucet water. That want is ready to develop as local weather change dries out areas and alters climate patterns.
It’s no accident that Zero Mass Water follows the ways and philosophy of the distributed photo voltaic market. Founder and MIT-trained supplies scientist Cody Friesen beforehand began zinc-air battery company Fluidic, which equipped some 3,000 power storage techniques for distant renewable microgrids around the globe. Billionaire Patrick Quickly-Shiong bought that company and turned it into NantEnergy in 2018.
Whereas touring the world for Fluidic, notably round Southeast Asia, Friesen seen how water stress transcends geography. For his subsequent enterprise, he needed to “do for water what photo voltaic did for electrical energy,” he advised Greentech Media. That imaginative and prescient attracted a high-powered roster of buyers, bringing complete funds raised to greater than $100 million.
“We’re accelerating from right here,” Friesen stated. “These are in all probability the final {dollars} in.”
In different phrases, this spherical ought to get the corporate to a spot the place it would want no additional enterprise funding. The corporate has already commercialized its Supply Hydropanels and has put in them for houses, colleges, eco-resorts and different services in 45 nations. Zero Mass Water makes cash on these offers on the mission stage, Friesen stated, and is consistently honing the core expertise to make it less expensive.
Zero Mass Water additionally created a “water buy settlement,” equal to the power-purchase settlement that revolutionized the photo voltaic market by letting prospects purchase the output of vegetation however not the vegetation themselves.
Assist from finance, utility sectors
Funds managed by BlackRock led the Sequence C spherical, months after CEO Larry Fink used his extremely anticipated annual letter to warn that local weather change was inflicting a “fundamental reshaping of finance” and promise to prioritize sustainability in funding choices. Invoice Gates-backed Breakthrough Vitality Ventures and the Materials Affect Fund joined the spherical, following up on earlier investments. U.S. utility Duke Vitality additionally joined, a uncommon occasion of that firm making enterprise investments.
“Our goal with this funding is to assist a sustainable answer — we all know water is one thing each group wants and need to contribute to new options to ship these important assets to these in want,” spokesperson Catherine Butler stated in an electronic mail.
Duke’s funding got here from the company stage, reasonably than from the regulated utility or the industrial improvement arm, she famous. The corporate beforehand made a direct enterprise funding in Omnidian, a photo voltaic operations and upkeep startup, and has invested in exterior VC funds.
The connection with Zero Mass Water goes again a number of years to when Friesen met the late former Duke Chairman and CEO Jim Rogers at a Clinton International Initiative occasion. Conversations there led to Duke supporting an early field deployment of the water panel expertise in Guayaquil, Ecuador, the place Duke operates an influence plant.
How the Supply Hydropanel works
The 340-pound Supply Hydropanel incorporates a small photovoltaic array to energy the system. The guts of the expertise, although, is a set of nanomaterials designed to suck hint quantities of moisture out of the air — even in desert environments like the corporate’s dwelling base of Tempe, Arizona. The panels use the warmth of the solar’s rays to evaporate the water from the absorption supplies. The system condenses the water, provides minerals to reinforce the flavour and pipes it out for consumption.
A house set up of two Hydropanels within the U.S. prices between $5,500 and $6,500 for each tools and set up labor, based on the corporate web site. That system guarantees 12 bottles of “scrumptious water” per day for an working lifetime of 15 years, yielding a value of lower than $0.15 per bottle.
Industrial-scale arrays string collectively rows of the identical panel unit, very like photo voltaic PV panels scale as much as provide industrial buildings. The corporate designs and assembles the panels in Arizona, then distributes them by means of a worldwide community of installer companions, a lot of which come from the photo voltaic set up enterprise.
The aggressive panorama mirrors the solar energy business as properly. The incumbent instrument for producing recent water in locations the place solely salty water exists naturally is desalination. However desalination vegetation value billions of dollars to construct and devour huge quantities of power in operation.
In distinction, Supply Hydropanels produce drinkable water with no infrastructure upgrades required — corresponding to constructing microgrids as a substitute of an enormous new thermal energy plant.
Promoting and putting in Hydropanels, Friesen famous, is comparatively easy in comparison with photo voltaic PV by way of regulation and allowing. The friction related to interconnecting to the present electrical utility community doesn’t actually apply for self-contained water turbines.
Up to date with extra details about Duke Vitality’s involvement within the deal.
