News & Press

Antora has raised $150 million in Series B funding, led by Decarbonization Partners, to slash industrial emissions and rapidly scale our technology. "Antora represents the next era for wind and solar,” says Meghan Sharp, global head of Decarbonization Partners, in the Wall Street Journal. “They’re bringing renewables to industry.”

Thermal batteries combined with cheap renewable energy marks "the first opportunity for decarbonizing industrial emissions in a way that's cost competitive with fossil fuels," Antora co-founder and CEO Andrew Ponec told Reuters.

In Heatmap News, Katie Brigham dives into why thermal batteries are “poised for a breakout year as one of the hottest things in climate tech,” and how Antora’s thermal batteries are scaling up to decarbonize industry today.

CNN Chief Climate Correspondent Bill Weir visited Antora to see our thermal battery in action. “I'm confident that we're going to be able to take that huge tool that we have in solar and wind,” shared Antora co-founder and CEO Andrew Ponec, “and displace fossil fuels faster even than most people think.”

Fast Company highlighted Antora as one of the solutions making them optimistic that we can still avoid the worst impacts of climate change. “By storing solar or wind power when there’s excess production,” writes Adele Peters, “the cost of the system can compete with fossil fuels.”

As featured in PV Magazine, Antora received $4 million in grant funding from the California Energy Commission and the Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy to scale our breakthrough heat-to-power thermophotovoltaic (TPV) technology.

TIME reports on how Antora can unlock zero-emissions industrial energy cheaper than fossil fuels—and how our new manufacturing facility will scale the deployment of our thermal batteries across the country.

MIT Tech Review featured the announcement of Antora’s first large-scale thermal battery manufacturing facility, which will electrify American factories with batteries made in an American factory.

Antora’s thermal battery has been named to TIME’s annual list of the Best Inventions, which features extraordinary innovations changing our lives.

On the Volts podcast, David Roberts sat down with Antora CEO Andrew Ponec to get into the details of how Antora’s thermal battery is decarbonizing industry—and why David is “as geeked about this technology as I have been about anything in ages.”

Bloomberg featured the launch of Antora’s commercial-scale system—a product that’s factory-made, road-shippable, and ready to scale to industrial sites across the globe.

As featured in Fast Company, Antora’s landmark commercial-scale system has reached the highest temperature yet demonstrated for thermal batteries at full scale, storing energy above 1,800°C—hot enough to address “hard-to-decarbonize” sectors like cement and steel.

MIT News featured Antora co-founder and CPO David Bierman and VP of Project Development Jordan Kearns, highlighting their journey from researching the energy transition as researchers at MIT to decarbonizing industry at Antora.

Norrsken featured Antora on its Impact/100 list—the annual list of the world’s 100 most promising and impactful startups.

CNBC highlighted Antora and the "multitrillion-dollar market opportunity" of decarbonizing industry on its Clean Start series, detailing how Antora’s thermal batteries store wind and solar energy to unlock 24/7 industrial heat and power.

In PV Magazine, Antora co-founder and COO Justin Briggs details how thermal batteries break through interconnection queue delays and open up thousands of new solar and wind projects across the country.

The World Economic Forum released a video breaking down how Antora’s thermal batteries store surplus renewable energy in carbon blocks to supply 24/7 heat to industry, with the potential to eliminate half of all industrial emissions.

Stand Together released a short film on how Antora's technology creates a new playing field for industry and the grid, cheaply storing renewable energy for days on end. Watch the full video to go behind the scenes at the world’s first thermal battery capable of outputting zero-emissions heat and power.

Optica featured Antora Energy Co-founder and CEO Andrew Ponec in its 2023 Entrepreneurs to Watch list. Andrew sat down with the magazine to discuss his journey from a photovoltaic lab at Stanford to building thermal batteries to decarbonize industry.

On the World Economic Forum’s Agenda, Antora co-founder & CEO Andrew Ponec explains why decarbonizing industry might be easier than we think. Cheap renewable energy opens a massive opportunity for industrial decarbonization, and thermal energy storage enables us to store this energy using low-cost, scalable and abundant materials.

In Ethanol Producer Magazine, Antora’s VP of Project Development Jordan Kearns details how thermal energy storage harnesses low-cost clean energy resources to fit the round-the-clock heat needs of ethanol producers, enabling ethanol plants to rapidly decarbonize.

On the What’s Your Problem? podcast, from former Planet Money co-host Jacob Goldstein, Antora CEO Andrew Ponec shares why energy storage is the defining challenge of the energy transition—and how Antora’s approach overcomes the cost and scalability barriers that have defined energy storage to date.

How do you store a lot of zero-carbon energy for cheap? Antora co-founder & COO Justin Briggs sat down with Ned Downie and Shivani Shikha on The Wharton Current podcast to discuss Antora’s origin and the future of industrial decarbonization.

As detailed in MIT Technology Review, thermal batteries are the "hottest new climate technology," capable of reaching the high temperatures needed to decarbonize industry. “It’s super simple—it’s literally just solid blocks,” Antora co-founder and COO Justin Briggs shared in the article.

Antora Energy’s breakthrough in thermal energy storage technology was honored in Fast Company as a World Changing Idea in the Sustainability & Energy category. A panel of Fast Company editors and reporters selected winners and finalists from a pool of more than 2,200 entries.

One-third of global emissions come from the manufacturing sector—more than electricity, agriculture, or transportation. In this video, ClearPath details how Antora Energy stores thermal energy and delivers on-demand, zero-carbon industrial heat and power.

“I’m increasingly convinced that thermal energy storage is going to be the solution for industrial heat, full stop,” Antora co-founder and CEO Andrew Ponec shared on Matt Ferrell’s Still To Be Determined podcast. “Theres nothing else that comes first from an economics perspective.”

CalSEED, part of New Energy Nexus, featured Antora Energy in the first episode of their series on energy storage, which dives into how Antora is decarbonizing industry.

“One of the biggest trends we’re seeing is the emergence of thermal storage as a critical piece of the energy transition, particularly when it comes to industrial decarbonization,” Andrew Ponec, co-founder and CEO of Antora Energy, told POWER Magazine. “Historically, the storage community has focused on the grid, but industry is emerging as the elephant in the room.”

PV Magazine details Antora’s new 2 MW thermophotovoltaic cell production line in Sunnyvale, California—the largest in the world. “The cells can convert any source of high temperature heat into electricity and their most important application is for energy storage,” shared Antora co-founder and CEO Andrew Ponec.

Sunnyvale, CA – January 24, 2023 – Antora Energy has built the world’s first dedicated manufacturing line for thermophotovoltaic (TPV) cells, achieving a major milestone in the production and scalability of TPV technology. The company has also demonstrated an efficiency rate greater than 40% for its TPV technology, setting a new industry benchmark.

Sunnyvale, CA – December 21, 2022 – Following its $50M Series A Funding earlier this year, Antora Energy has acquired Medley Thermal to support the commercialization of its zero-carbon heat and power solution for industrial decarbonization.

Antora Energy Co-Founder and CEO Andrew Ponec joined Emily Kirsch on the Watt It Takes podcast to share his story, the story of building Antora, and the role Antora will play in decarbonizing heavy industry.

“Startup Antora Energy knows the power of the light side,” writes Julian Spector in Canary Media, detailing how Antora’s approach to energy storage differs from other startups—and what that means for decarbonizing industry and the grid.

We turn solar and wind into 24/7 industrial heat and power — cheaper than fossil fuels. We started the Antora Energy journey by asking: how can we make the biggest positive impact on climate change? Here’s the full story about why we arrived at our technology and approach.

Decarbonization at the scale necessary to meet global warming mitigation targets will require a radical rethinking of global infrastructure. CNBC highlighted Antora Energy’s $50 million financing round, co-led by Breakthrough Energy Ventures and Lowercarbon Capital.

Sunnyvale, CA – February 16, 2022 – Breakthrough Energy Ventures and Lowercarbon Capital co-led Antora’s recent round to zero out emissions in the hardest-to-decarbonize industries on earth. “Antora makes heat and electricity from solar panels cheaper than burning gas,” said Chris Sacca, Chairman at Lowercarbon Capital. “That’s lights out for fossil fuels.”

Co-founder and CEO Andrew Ponec sat down with Jason Jacobs on the My Climate Journey podcast to break down Antora Energy's approach and vision for long-duration storage, how thermal energy storage works, and scaling our technology.

Cleantech Group featured Antora Energy on its ‘50 to Watch List,’ a list of leading startups who are developing innovative ways to tackle the climate crisis.

Antora Energy has been added to the Future List—a compilation of high-growth, high-impact climate ventures tackling trillion-dollar market opportunities.

Physics Girl featured Antora Energy’s technology in her recent video on the state of energy storage, detailing the opportunities for using storage technologies to cut emissions.

In a piece on thermal batteries, IEEE Spectrum highlighted Antora’s technology and why carbon blocks are the most effective medium for thermal energy storage.

California Energy Commission announced its $3 million grant for Antora Energy as a part of its program to support clean energy entrepreneurs.

The U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) selected Antora Energy for its $2 million grant to support our use of thermophotovoltaic cells to recover waste heat from iron and steelmaking processes.

Antora Energy has been announced as one of Business Insider’s leading climate-tech startups.

Third Derivative announced that Antora Energy was joining its portfolio of startups, investors, and policy makers to increase the speed to market for climate innovation.

Co-founder and CEO Andrew Ponec joined a panel in Stanford StorageX International Symposium to discuss the current state of battery technology.

Stanford’s TomKat Center highlighted the origins of Antora Energy and California Energy Commission’s recent $2 million grant for Antora.

The California Energy Commission selected Antora Energy for a $2 million grant as a part of a program to fund the development and field testing of emerging energy storage technologies.

The National Science Foundation selected Antora Energy for a $734,000 grant to generate inexpensive, reliable electricity using thermophotovoltaic cells.

CNBC highlighted how Antora’s use of thermal energy storage to electrify industrial processes overcomes the limits of lithium-ion batteries.

MIT Technology Review featured Antora Energy, detailing how the company uses carbon blocks and thermophotovoltaic cells to provide heat and power to industry and the grid.

GCxN has selected Antora Energy for its GameChanger Accelerator, providing access to NREL labs and funding.

Cyclotron Road shared the backstory of Antora Energy co-founders Andrew Ponec, David Bierman, and Justin Briggs, and what inspired them to pursue entrepreneurship in the energy sector.

Antora Energy was selected as one of five 2018 awardees for CalTech’s Rocket Fund, a program that supports widespread deployment of renewable energy innovations.

Greentech Media highlighted Antora’s $3 million grant from ARPA-E, a key advancement in the company’s development of thermal batteries.

Stanford detailed Antora’s path from Stanford’s TomKat Center for Sustainable Energy to Cyclotron Road to earning the GCxN prize.