Press Release
OAKLAND, Calif. – July 13, 2022 – TITAN Cement Group joins decarbonization and electrification investment leaders, Breakthrough Energy Ventures and Energy Impact Partners, in supporting Rondo Energy (“Rondo”) through its recent Series A financing round for the scale-up of its innovative “heat battery” technology, aiming to provide new solutions for decarbonizing power generation and heavy industry, including cement manufacturing.
The Rondo Heat Battery uses established industrial technologies to transform renewable electricity into heat at 98% efficiency, exhibiting high scalability potential that’s cost competitive to current energy storage methods. In addition to supplying heat at temperatures of up to 1,500°C, the modular battery can store renewable energy generated during off-peak hours, ensuring grid load flexibility, and achieving additional greenhouse gas emissions savings.
Rondo will use the Series A funding to establish its first manufacturing lines, proceed with industrial demonstrations and develop services for both heavy industry and energy producers.
TITAN will work in a technological partnership with Rondo to develop new concepts for decarbonizing industrial production, including cement, combining its significant expertise on sustainable and digital manufacturing with Rondo’s unique innovation in industrial decarbonization. Both companies look forward to working together towards carbon neutrality in cement production and to play a leading role in building the infrastructure of the future.
Rondo’s thermal energy storage technology is of particular importance to cement manufacturing in the roadmap towards carbon neutrality. As energy transfer can take place using kiln flue gases, the carbon-neutral, high temperature heat can be used to produce clinker, as well as for the thermal activation of minerals and by-products, alleviating significant part of the emissions originating from fossil fuels burning.
Furthermore, the heat battery can become a critical component of novel energy-intensive processes for decarbonization, such as carbon capture, green hydrogen generation and conversion of captured CO2.
“With vital support from Titan and our partners, Rondo will unlock the availability of low-cost, zero-carbon, high-temperature heat, together setting a new standard for industrial decarbonization in energy-intensive industries,” said John O’Donnell, CEO of Rondo Energy. “With Titan’s deep industry knowledge and expertise, Rondo is now accelerating the deployment of our heat batteries to help reach carbon neutral building materials production that decarbonizes global construction supply chains. Our relationship will also increase Rondo’s manufacturing capacity, while reducing the carbon footprint of our own materials.”
“Combining our expertise in sustainable and digitized manufacturing and our entrepreneurial approach to innovation, with Rondo’s breakthrough technology and globally unique partner ecosystem, we are confident that we can play a leading role in building the infrastructure of the future and accelerating the roadmap towards carbon neutrality of the construction value chain,” said Fokion Tasoulas, Group Innovation & Technology Director of TITAN. “We look forward to working with Rondo to bring our vision to reality.”