How Malta's technology stores electricity from eight hours to eight days or longer, supporting renewable energy integration and reducing CO2 emissions, as well as how this contributes to the global shift toward clean energy?
Malta's electro-thermal storage technology plays a crucial role in the global shift toward clean energy by offering a solution for storing electricity from eight hours to multiple days. This capability supports the integration of renewable energy sources, such as wind and solar, which are abundant but intermittent. Our system stores excess energy generated when these resources are plentiful—or sometimes excessive at certain points on the grid, avoiding energy curtailment—and releases it when they are scarce, ensuring a steady and reliable power supply.
Long-duration energy storage (LDES) is the key to unlocking the renewables revolution. While wind and solar are very cheap, there is a natural barrier to how much of them the grid can accommodate. Malta’s technology addresses this by doing two things: first, like all LDES, it shifts energy from a time when it’s plentiful to a time when it’s not. But in addition to that,
Malta’s system is a reliability asset, thanks to its fundamental characteristics. By incorporating turbomachinery, it provides real rotational inertia and delivers critical grid services like reactive power, frequency support, and voltage regulation.
Both energy shifting and grid reliability are crucial for the future grid in a decarbonized world. The goal is to incorporate emissions-free electricity while ensuring it remains reliable, resilient, and affordable. Malta plays a key role in achieving this vision, enabling renewable energy to be deployed at scale while maintaining grid stability.
Significance of Malta’s recent funding round involving Siemens Energy Ventures, Alfa Laval, and other key investors, and how this financial support will help deploy Malta’s storage systems to accelerate decarbonization efforts worldwide.
Partnerships have been in our DNA from day one. From the moment we spun out from X, the moonshot factory (formerly Google X), our approach to the climate transition has been to collaborate with experts across various domains—technical, commercial, and financial. We’ve done this from the beginning, forging partnerships with financial investors and strategic partners who bring highly specialized expertise to advance our technology.
Siemens Energy brings unparalleled expertise in turbomachinery, a central component of our system, while Alfa Laval contributes its leadership in heat exchange technology, another key element of Malta's energy storage. Cox Energy, as a vertically integrated IPP—ranging from development and asset ownership to service and EPC—plays a valuable role throughout the value chain, and we are delighted to welcome them to our family.
These strategic partnerships are crucial in addressing both the technical and financial challenges of scaling Malta’s long-duration energy storage systems globally. By providing the financial backing and technical know-how, our partners enable us to effectively commercialize and deploy our technology across diverse markets.
Malta's partnership with BBVA to advance energy storage projects in the Iberian Peninsula, focusing on how they aim to develop effective financial solutions and create viable models for future energy storage projects.
Our partnership with BBVA exemplifies how financial institutions can catalyze innovation in the energy transition. BBVA is leveraging its market access to help create new financial models that make long-duration energy storage projects more financeable. One of the biggest challenges in deploying new energy storage technologies is securing reliable revenue streams. With BBVA, we are working to unlock project financing by developing a power purchase agreement (PPA) specifically designed for our LDES solution.
This partnership is particularly focused on advancing Malta’s energy storage projects in the Iberian Peninsula, where we aim to create viable financial models that can be replicated across future storage projects. BBVA’s support will help accelerate the deployment of Malta’s technology, demonstrating the vital role that financial innovation plays in advancing clean energy.
How Malta's technology offers a "like-for-like" replacement for natural gas-powered plants, enabling solar and wind energy to provide stable, reliable, and clean power while maintaining grid stability?
Malta’s technology provides a 'like-for-like' replacement for fossil fuel plants in terms of size and performance. Our grid-sized storage systems, ranging from 100 MW to over 500 MW, deliver the same quality of power, including synchronous inertia and reactive power, which are essential for grid stability.
Rather than viewing coal and fossil fuel infrastructure as stranded assets, Malta’s long-duration energy storage (LDES) technology offers a new lease on life for these plants. By integrating our storage and charge modules with existing plant infrastructure, we transform these sites into energy storage hubs that store excess renewable energy—such as wind or solar—and dispatch it when needed. Their existing grid connections and strategic locations make these sites ideal for storage, creating a smooth transition from fossil fuel dependency to renewable energy integration. This repurposing not only extends the operational life of existing plants but also supports economic revitalization in communities dependent on fossil fuel industries. Malta’s approach enables a just transition, offering displaced workers new roles in the green economy while maintaining vital energy services.
Additionally, Malta’s system offers dual functionality, allowing it to provide both electricity and heat. This unique feature is especially valuable for industries that require not just power but also heat for industrial processes, or cities in need of district heating solutions. By delivering both forms of energy from a single system, Malta’s technology goes beyond simply replacing fossil fuel power plants—it enables a more comprehensive decarbonization of energy systems. The ability to produce both heat and electricity adds a significant layer of versatility, making our system an attractive solution not only for the power sector but also for industrial operations looking to decarbonize. This flexibility, combined with our grid-stabilizing capabilities, positions Malta as a key player in the transition to cleaner, more reliable energy sources.
Challenges of deploying first-of-a-kind energy storage solutions and Malta's vision for expanding its technology to address the needs of a carbon-neutral future.
In the short term, one of the key challenges in the energy transition is the timeline for fully retiring fossil fuel plants, which in most countries is projected for 2030 to 2035. However, the decarbonization process doesn’t have to wait until then. Malta’s technology can be deployed today, enabling industries and energy sectors to immediately reduce carbon emissions while continuing to use existing infrastructure. This approach helps bridge the gap between ongoing fossil fuel reliance and the longer-term goal of a fully renewable energy grid.
Our vision extends beyond standalone plants. Malta’s technology is designed to integrate with existing industrial plants, district heating systems, and fossil-fired power plants, facilitating the gradual decarbonization of these assets. This flexibility provides a scalable pathway toward a low-carbon future.
Deploying first-of-a-kind (FOAK) energy storage solutions comes with its own set of challenges, particularly in securing financing and navigating regulatory frameworks. A major hurdle is the perceived risk associated with new technologies like LDES, due to limited deployment history. To overcome this, Malta is actively leveraging strategic partnerships and innovative financing models, such as those being developed with BBVA.
As the LDES market evolves, regulatory support must also progress to fully capture the value technologies like Malta’s offers in stabilizing the grid and supporting renewable integration. Establishing market mechanisms that reward it’s unique contributions—like capacity mechanisms and ancillary services—is essential for long-term revenue generation.
With strong support from both public and private sectors, Malta is ready to play a key role in the clean energy transition, providing solutions that can be deployed immediately to drive decarbonization and ensure a reliable, carbon-neutral energy future.
