Innovators behind New York-based Urban Electric Power (UEP) knew they were onto something promising: transforming traditional alkaline batteries into rechargeable ones using earth-abundant material.

To continue scaling up the business, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) suggested UEP form a company.

Having the technology was one part of the journey; however, attracting investment, navigating policy and fostering partnerships to scale also confronted UEP at the start.

UEP got the boost it needed to gain knowledge and help expand the business from tech giant Amazon Web Services (AWS).

As a past participant in the AWS Clean Energy Accelerator Program, UEP COO Ann Marie Augustus can speak to the program’s benefits. She sat down with Hart Energy and AWS recently to discuss the company’s beginnings and accelerator program as AWS unveiled the 2023 startups selected for the program.

“I learned a new phrase called ‘Death by Pilot.’ … Some startups get into this mode where they do a lot of pilot projects, but they’re not able to convert them into commercial customers,” Augustus said, calling the program intense. “AWS really focused on how we could transition from pilots into commercial customers.”

Since spinning out of federal and state research funds from the City University of New York Energy Institute about nine years ago, UEP has been forming partnerships in the U.S. and abroad, moving toward utility-scale adoption of its modular rechargeable zinc alkaline battery — energy storage systems with the potential to help transform electric grids.

“We actually had the opportunity to partner with one of their [AWS’] corporate partners, Enel—one of the largest European utilities,” said Augustus. “We signed an agreement with them for two test systems. So, for us, it was a very big deal to partner with a large company that may not normally know about us.”

As part of the Clean Energy Accelerator program, participants are mentored by industry and thought leaders on topics such as energy, digital competency, investment, public policy, innovation and advanced research, according to AWS. Spurring co-innovation through energy collaboration is at the program’s core.

Paving the way

The program aims to “facilitate collaborations with mature startups developing breakthrough clean energy technologies,” AWS said. Its launch was driven in part by findings from the International Energy Agency showing about 40% of the CO2 reductions needed to hit net-zero emissions by 2050 rely on technologies not yet commercially deployed on a mass-market scale.

Since the program kicked off about two years ago, AWS has received more than 1,100 applications from startups wanting to join, said Jay Shah, principal of energy marketing and innovation programs for AWS.

“We were surprised by its success,” Shah told Hart Energy on the sidelines of the CERAWeek by S&P Global conference in March. “We saw how much of an appetite there was, one, to scale the startups; two, the technologies they had; and three, how much interest there was in our corporate partners.”

The latest version of the program, 3.0, adds the International Exchange Sprint (IES) component such as the one with Masdar City, Abu Dhabi. In November 2022, AWS agreed to stage an IES in the Masdar City innovation hub in fourth-quarter 2023, coinciding with COP28.

“That’s really brought in the reach and the breadth of the program,” Shah said.

Twenty-one startups have successfully completed the program.

“We’re providing our technology expertise. We provide access to our Solution Architects which help with the architecture of specific applications [and] what’s the right way to scale up a program,” Shah said.

Participants also have an opportunity to connect with AWS’ corporate partners, which include companies such as ENI, EDP and other large corporations seeking innovative technologies such as energy storage, he added. “We’re helping connect those partners to scale; not just the startups and their innovation programs, but also the innovations within larger enterprises as well.”

Looking ahead

AWS also brings the benefits of cloud to help scale, run simulations and improve agility.

Hawaii-based Shifted Energy, a tech startup that manages behind the meter energy loads, went through the program and was able to expand beyond the U.S. and into Australia, Canada and New Zealand. Much of that was enabled via the power of the cloud and global infrastructure, AWS said.

Similarly, UEP has scaled up, entering the commercial markets with systems operating in California, New Mexico and New York, the company said.

Within the next five years or so, Shah sees the program growing as the energy landscape evolves.

“Whether it’s energy security, energy transition, net-zero goals, it’s the defining challenge of our generation,” Shah said. “As many of these technologies come online, I see the program, number one, growing in global reach even more so than it is right now. Number two, I see more startups entering and collaborating not only with each other but with bigger partners, and I see the number of partners globally growing as they see the success of organizations like Urban Electric or Shifted Energy.”

Startups selected for the 2023 Clean Energy Accelerator 3.0 are: Lyten (U.S.) an advanced material manufacturer; SunGreenH2 (Singapore), a developer of nanostructured materials to lower electrolyzer costs; CFEX (U.S.), which has a platform that calculates Scope 2 emissions; and GENCELL (Israel), a provider of zero emission fuel cell generators.

Anodyne Chemistries (Canada), Good Chemistry (Canada), Levidian Nanosystems (U.K.), H2X Mobility (Australia), Arenko (U.K.), Element 1 (U.S.), Fusebox Energy (Estonia), DiviGas (Singapore), Leap Energy (U.S.), Jungle AI (Netherlands) and Andes (U.S.) were also selected to participate.