TITAN Cement Group joins decarbonisation 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 decarbonising power generation and heavy industry, including cement manufacturing.

The Rondo Heat Battery uses established industrial technologies to transform renewable electricity into heat at 98 per cent efficiency, exhibiting high scalability potential that’s cost competitive to current energy storage methods, claims Rondo. In addition to supplying heat at temperatures of up to 1500°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 decarbonising industrial production, including cement, combining its significant expertise on sustainable and digital manufacturing with Rondo’s unique innovation in industrial decarbonisation. 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 decarbonisation, such as carbon capture, green hydrogen generation and conversion of captured CO2.