Standard Potential Co. is scaling a breakthrough sodium-ion battery technology that eliminates critical bottlenecks in existing terawatt-hour-scale lithium-ion manufacturing infrastructure while using sustainable and abundant mineral inputs. Deploying Standard Potential’s batteries into diurnal, longer-duration storage applications enables the proliferation of cheaper and cleaner energy.
FELLOWS
Richard May
Richard May is co-founder of Standard Potential Co. May and co-founder Andrew Wang began their journey as colleagues at Tesla, validating the Model 3 cell chemistry. May received his B.S. in chemical engineering from Caltech and a Ph.D. and postdoctoral appointment at Columbia University. He led a wide range of projects there, spanning battery chemistry development and characterization, hydrometallurgical battery recycling, and supply chain analysis for energy storage and solar photovoltaic generation.
Andrew Wang
Andrew Wang is co-founder of Standard Potential Co., which is commercializing sustainable battery technologies he developed with ARPA-E as a Columbia Climate Postdoctoral Fellow. He previously co-founded Intercalation Co., a popular energy storage industry insights hub focusing on supporting early-stage startups. Wang holds a D.Phil. in engineering science from Oxford and a B.S. in chemical engineering from UC Berkeley.
TECHNOLOGY
Critical Need
The advancement of our energy economy is constrained by compromises between rapid electricity load growth, net-zero renewables goals, and supply chain scaling dynamics. Many solutions address two out of three dimensions. Lithium-ion batteries, for example, are successfully electrifying transportation but lack the cost-performance characteristics to scale into longer-duration stationary storage segments. This is compounded by natural resource processing bottlenecks exposed to critical lithium minerals. Innovations are required for a resilient grid that ensures clean and abundant energy access.
Technology Vision
Beyond minimizing mineral intensity, Standard Potential’s proprietary technology minimizes manufacturing with a breakthrough scalable process that plugs directly into a fraction of today's industrial lithium-ion infrastructure. Resultant sodium-ion systems set new performance, cost, and safety standards while bridging terawatt-hour unit operation compatibility with terawatt-hour sustainable mineral inputs.
Potential for Impact
Standard Potential actively supports a stable and secure energy transition. By leveraging such transformative sodium-ion battery technologies in diurnal storage applications, the cheapest sources of intermittent electricity generation from renewable wind and solar receive a firm entitlement to grid expansion while providing equitable, abundant energy to all. Rapid deployment of sustainable batteries in heavy industry, information, and transport will accelerate society’s most important sectors toward clean decarbonization and electrification without compromise.
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Standard Potential