Startup Series: Moment Energy
Today's guest is Edward Chiang, Co-Founder & CEO of Moment Energy.
Eddy co-founded Moment Energy in 2019. He was a member of NEXT 36, a cohort of NEXT Canada, a non-profit that develops exceptional talent to create world-class ventures and propel technology adoption. Eddy holds a BASc in Mechatronics Systems Engineering from Simon Fraser University.
Moment Energy provides affordable, performant, and reliable energy storage by repurposing retired electric vehicle (EV) batteries. The company is working with major automotive companies, including Nissan and various utilities, to take advantage of the 80% remaining capacity in retired EV batteries to provide cost-advantaged and robust grid storage solutions for facilities located in major markets.
In this episode, Eddy walks me through how he and his co-founded started Moment Energy, Moment's progress to date, and how he first came to care about the problem of EV battery recycling. We also dive into the existing policy around end-of-life care of batteries, what motivates EV manufacturers to work with Moment, and where safety, ethics, and sustainability fit into the customer decision-making process. Eddy is a great guest, and the Moment Energy story is fantastic for MCJ listeners.
Enjoy the show!
You can find me on twitter @jjacobs22 or @mcjpod and email at info@myclimatejourney.co, where I encourage you to share your feedback on episodes and suggestions for future topics or guests.
Episode recorded January 31st, 2022
In Today's episode, we cover:
Overview of Moment Energy
How Eddy and his three best friends started Moment and why Eddy cares about climate change
Whether the technology or the problem came first
The problem that EV battery waste poses and why these batteries are discarded while they're still functioning
The second life of EV batteries
Where Moment sources their batteries from and their initial application prior to Moment
The motivations of vehicle manufacturers to sell their batteries to Moment and the existing policy around end of life/recycling battery care
Moment Energy's solution
The battery recycling landscape and how Moment stacks up against existing alternatives
The importance of safety, ethics, and sustainability in the customer decision-making process
How Moment will grow regarding target customers and types of projects
The white space between off-grid projects and smaller-scale projects that larger manufacturers aren't interested in
Moment's progress to date
Links to topics discussed in this episode:
Moment Energy: https://www.momentenergy.ca/
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Jason Jacobs: Hey everyone, Jason here. I am the My Climate Journey show host. Before we get going, I wanted to take a minute and tell you about the My Climate Journey or MCJ as we call it membership option.
Membership came to be because there were a bunch of people that were listening to the show that weren't just looking for education, but they were longing for a peer group as well. So we set up a slack community for those people. That's now mushroomed into more than 1300 members.
There is an application to become a member. It's not an exclusive thing. There's four criteria we screen for, determination to tackle the problem of climate change, ambition to work on the most impactful solution areas, optimism that we can make a dent and we're not wasting our time for trying and a collaborative spirit. Beyond that, the more diversity, the better.
There's a bunch of great things that have come out of that community, a number of founding teams that have met in there, a number of nonprofits that have been established, a bunch of hiring that's been done, a bunch of companies that have raised capital in there. A bunch of funds that have gotten limited partners or investors for their funds in there, as well as a bunch of events and programming by members and for members and some open source projects that are getting actively worked on that hatched in there as well.
At any rate, if you wanna learn more, you can go to myclimatejourney.co the website and click the become a member tab at the top. Enjoy the show. Hello everyone, this is Jason Jacobs and welcome to My Climate Journey.
Today's guest is Eddy Chiang, co-founder and CEO of Moment Energy. Moment Energy, which was a recent MCJ collective investment is based out of Vancouver and they are repurposing electric vehicle batteries to create sustainable energy storage systems for micro-grid, commercial and industrial customers.
Their solution helps with peak energy demands and can be paired with any renewable source to solve energy intermittency and increase energy reliability. In this episode, we talk about the origin story for the company, how it got going, when it got going, why it got going?
We talk about the EV landscape and the EV battery landscape in general. What happens to these batteries when they are at end of life? How big a problem it is to repurpose them, why it isn't happening more? What enables Moment to do it. And then when they do repurpose them, what's the value proposition and to whom and for what kinds of applications.
We also talk about their traction to date, what's coming next, their long vision, and then just a great discussion about how to speed up electrification in general, how to get more of these batteries repurposed, Moment's role in the process, and also just what makes them different and unique. I learned a lot from this one and I hope you do as well. Eddie, welcome to the show.
Eddy Chiang: Thank you. Thank you so much. I'm really excited.
Jason Jacobs: Well, I'm excited as well. I mean, obviously I know a bit about the company given that MCJ collective is a-
Eddy Chiang: [laughs].
Jason Jacobs: ... proud investor, but really excited to do this deep dive, both so that I'll learn more about the company and your personal journey, but also just so everyone else can benefit as well. Cause you're working in an important area.
Eddy Chiang: Yeah. The MCJ community's been super welcoming even from before you guys invested till now. So I'm excited to kind of spread the word and, and also get connected with more individuals that are also equally as inspiring.
Jason Jacobs: Nice. Well what's Moment Energy. You'll just start from the top.
Eddy Chiang: Yeah. So at Moment, what we're doing is we're repurposing electric vehicle batteries for renewable energy storage. So I started this company with myself and three of my best friends. We were all mechatronics systems engineers from Canada. We're based in Vancouver and yeah, we just have a passion for clean tank and electric vehicles and trying to help make the world cleaner.
Jason Jacobs: How did the idea for the company come about? What's the origin story?
Eddy Chiang: Yeah. [laughs] So with myself, my three other co-founders are Gurmesh, Sumreen and Gabe. So all of us in our third year of engineering, we actually wanted to join [laughs] a Formula One team. So Formula One has been pretty big recently and we wanted to help build those cars back at our local school, but we actually got rejected.
So it was pretty funny where maybe you could say it's a little bit outta spite, but we're like, you know, fine. If you're not gonna let us in, we're gonna make our own team. And we decided to make our own team, but instead of Formula One, it was Formula One electric. So building and designing a whole entire electric vehicle from scratch and racing that.
So we all co-founded that Formula One electric race team, built out the team, built out the vehicle and we were super ready to race in 2020. By that point, we were actually at the end of our education and we were pretty much more like directors and mentors for the team, but then COVID hit as we all know, so we didn't get to race.
And out of everything slowly became more virtual. And one of the virtual events was actually a Hong Kong based event, which was, hey, what are we gonna do with this huge problem with electric vehicle batteries? Right now they're after, it's end of life in electric vehicle. A lot of them are very improperly disposed of, so where are some solutions?
And the solution that we came up with as a team was repurposing electric vehicle batteries for stationary energy storage. But the funny thing was that back then we had the whole application, had the whole reports then, and then we're handing it in, but we actually ended up handing it at late because of time zone differences, cause Hong Kong's very different from Vancouver.
So we ended up just always having that, that idea in, in the back of our minds. And then we kind of just continued through our engineering degrees and, and then continued through our entrepreneurship with degrees. We kind of fun fact, is we also co-founded a, a neuroscience, a mental health company previously.
Realized, hey, maybe we're not the team to do it as robotics engineers, but instead of disbanding as a team, we decided, hey, what's in the actual topic that we're not only really passionate about, but our skill sets really fit in, in well. So, so this idea was always in the back of our mind and our passions for electric vehicles was always there. So we pivoted in 2020 to this idea and now we've been off to the races since.
Jason Jacobs: And so when you came back around in 2020 to focus on it, was it a certain technology and you were trying to figure out how to best apply it or was there a problem that you were really anchored around and, and if the latter, what was the problem and if the former, what was the technology?
Eddy Chiang: Yeah, for us, especially with repurposing EV batteries, it was mainly the problem. For us what we found and we dug around was, well, how are EV batteries disposed of? And we saw actually only 5% of all EV batteries are responsibly recycled. And then we dug deeper. Where if they're not recycled, where did they go?
And we found out they either end up on shelves or they end up in landfills, unfortunately. And then last part was, why are they ending up in landfills and shelves and not being recycled? And we found, oh, well this recycling technology just isn't there yet.
We've talked to the recyclers, for example, in Norway, half of all vehicles on the road are electric vehicles. So they're really where North America's gonna be in another, let's say 20 years. And the recyclers there said, "Yeah, we just, we have the cool technology. We're transitioning from pyrol metallurgy," which is using like fire to essentially burn batteries to extract its content, which is not good for the environment and to hydro metallurgy, which is actually really good for the environment where it's using water and, and essentially extracting you with as little carbon as possible and GCs admitted as possible.
But the problem is that the technology was still very new. It still is. And it's still gonna take 10, 15 years before they become profitable. Where, you know, a consumer can just easily drop off their right now, like lead acid batteries, right. To get a recycled and not pay anything or even get a little bit money for it.
So we know, we found out that, hey, there's a huge, huge, huge timeframe where nobody's gonna be able to recycle these batteries. But at the same time, as we dug in as engineers, we're like, wait, there's an average of 80% life left in these batteries. What's the point of even throwing these batteries in landfills or even recycling them if I can repurpose them for an extra seven plus years, seven, 10, 15 years, and then recycle them? Therefore creating a full circular economy.
Jason Jacobs: And so if they still have seven years in them, why are they getting discarded to begin with?
Eddy Chiang: Yeah. So, I mean, and then that's where kind of the solution developing that solution for this problem comes in because repurposing EV batteries isn't easy. You could, we have heard, and we've worked with individuals out there who buy first and second Nissan Leaf batteries and they create their own little test power balls in their off grid homes. And it's pretty cool.
There's a huge community out there, but they're not doing it super safely just yet. And mainly because managing EV batteries is not easy. Managing new lithium batteries is pretty easy because it's very predictable how you can charge and discharge it. But when you get an EV battery, let's say you drive a Nissan Leaf in Arizona for 10 to 15 years, or you drive a Nissan Leaf in Alaska for eight to 10 years, right?
The temperatures differences alone, along with all these other variables, such as how's the vehicle being driven, how many years the vehicle's been driven causes the batteries to degrade very differently.
So at moment or at any other second life company that pops up is we'll get batteries that are, let's say 80% life left versus another battery could be 90% life left. And therefore when you put these two differing state of health batteries together into the same system, the whole system is actually bogged down by the lowest quality battery, which is not easy to manage for the battery management system.
And what the battery management system does is it safely charges and discharges the battery, your phone has it, your laptop has it. Any lithium based device has it. But right now battery management systems are pretty dumb.
So for this problem, we're developing the solution where we're being the best BMS. So battery managed system for second life specific applications, therefore for safety, but also for efficiency. So again, the baseline life for our second life battery is seven years. Then we're aiming to get eight, nine years, even more years out of the, the batteries too.
Jason Jacobs: So if the battery still has 70, 80, 90% of its life left, why is it moving towards second life? Why doesn't it just stay in the EV that it originated in?
Eddy Chiang: Yeah, a really great question. So within the EV versus a stationary storage application, let's say they're both lithium batteries, right? It just has a lot of stress. It puts a lot of stress on the, the lithium batteries. So for example, for a stationary storage application, that's, let's say a Tesla Powerwall, that's commercial industrial building that you've installed energy storage into, the battery typically at maximum will experience what we call 1C.
Or in layman's term it means like one times the stress factor is what you can imagine it as, but in the electric vehicle, when you hit that accelerator, when you charge your vehicle in 20 minutes, it puts up to five to 8C of stress onto that vehicle, which is a lot, [laughs] a lot of stress. So what you would see as a consumer of an ed is okay, maybe after five years, you see that I've lost 20% of range, right?
You even see that in your phone today. I bet you that your phone currently stores a lot less energy than it did when you just got it new. So usually that will signal to consumers. Okay, well, it's probably time to get a new car.
So for some consumers, maybe they only commute from home to work and they don't really need to do road trips. So maybe they'll hold on to the car. But what they'll notice is yes, it took about five years to lose that. Let's say 20% of health and range, but it's not gonna be another five years before it loses another 20%. It actually degrades exponentially and even faster.
So with that one factor, also other factors such as looking at Norway, again, they've seen consumer trends where consumers just still like to get a new vehicle every eight to 10 years. It didn't really change. Even though we hear that EVs have a lot less maintenance and whatnot.
And then the, with those two main factors we're seeing, okay, well, people are, are getting rid of their vehicle at a pretty healthy battery health, therefore causing these batteries to get discarded prematurely. Yeah.
Jason Jacobs: Uh-huh [affirmative]. I mean, it's a weird analogy, but it's almost like when runner switch to cycling, it's like, you know, the wear and tear on the knees is beating up on them. And so you can't stick to that sport, but that doesn't mean they can't stick to any sport. It means that if there was a sport that had less wear and tear on their knees, for example, and their back then they could keep doing it, but they might have to switch.
So I, I think what you're saying and correct me if I'm wrong is that the EVs have a bunch of wear and tear where there might still be good battery life left, but just not the kind that can put up with the wear and tear that comes from that rapid acceleration and deceleration and cold temperatures and, and things like that. But if it were repurposed, it's still got plenty of good life left. It just needs to be applied to other applications outside of the, the vehicle. Is that right?
Eddy Chiang: That's absolutely right. Yeah. And even for us, we, for us, we don't take batteries that are less than 50% state of health left, but there are already studies that have been popping up in potentially even companies that will pop up soon in the next couple years that say, hey, we can actually get a third life out of these batteries.
And then you can put them in even less stressful applications, such as let's say, backup power for data centers where, you know, you barely will use the batteries maybe once a year, therefore you can afford to have a third life for these batteries, which is exciting.
Jason Jacobs: And so in terms of the second life, so what's the source of the batteries that you're using? And then what's the application that they're being applied for at least initially?
Eddy Chiang: Yeah. Great question. So right now we're the only Canadian company working with Nissan North America, and really just a handful of companies that are working with Nissan in general. That's the public one. We're also working with a couple European OEMs and other, let's say non-Japanese [laughs] Asian OEMs as well.
And in terms of applications that we've been deploying in is we've been taking these matters directly from the auto manufacturers. So not really auto records, but actually tested from the vehicle manufacturer. And then we have been deploying them in at first off grid residential.
So that essentially means somebody that's been living on an island or kind of in the fourth, in the middle of nowhere where they have to produce their own energy. So they have their own solar, they have their own little diesel generator. And right now their only solution is they have lead acid batteries, which is pretty bad quality for their use case because for off grid, you're using charging and discharging that battery every single day.
So lead acid battery typically has, let's say about 500, 600 cycles in them. So if you cycle them every day, then ideally in best case scenarios, you'll get maybe under two years out of them while lithium batteries have, you know, tens of thousands of cycles. So you can last many, many years.
Now we're actually seeing is that in these applications, that if they use lead acid batteries, the worst case I've heard so far is they bought batteries, they're promised 10 years of life from them, and they only had one month of life in them because of how much stress performing an off grid is.
So we've been deploying in these sites where our goal is to install some high quality lithium second life batteries meant for an EV, which is also a very extreme case as well. And then we can store solar. And the goal is to really have that diesel generator barely turn on.
So in the summer months, especially here in Canada and in these sites, yeah, the diesel generators barely turned on, of course in the winter, what happens is there's maybe not enough solar. So they'll turn on that diesels generator, power that house for a little bit, but also charge up the batteries and then they can shut off the diesel generator once the batteries are charged up and the batteries can be discharging again.
So it's like a hybrid car type setting. So those have been essentially a lot of the projects that we've been doing so far, but then now we're seeing, especially with the battery architecture and, and also the need and how underserved this market is, we've been deploying in commercial, industrial applications. So within off-grid that's remote communities, mining sites, aquaculture sites, where they again have these huge diesel generators that are wasting lots and lots of fuel.
But then on the on grid setting, that's manufacturing buildings, small to medium manufacturing buildings, EV charging infrastructure, corporate buildings, where they're faced with hundreds of thousands of dollars in utility bills a year, mainly because they're overstressing the grid and the grid can't take all the, the power that's required from them. So instead of kind of, for us, we believe that we're helping with grid resilience as one, one aspect, but at the same time, helping these on grid individuals transition into renewables, again, into storage and into other forms like solar and whatnot.
Jason Jacobs: Uh-huh [affirmative]. And so the, the batteries that you're getting from these vehicle manufacturers, what's the incentive from the vehicle manufacturer to give them to you. Are, are you buying them or is there some other motivation?
Eddy Chiang: Yeah. Great question. So the motivation is because currently recycling is super expensive and again, it's projected to be so for another 10, 15 plus years. So right now, here in North America, we don't have any laws that put the responsibility of end of life batteries onto the automaker just yet, though the insider knowledge is [laughs] that congressmen and women right now are writing that bill.
So what does that mean? It means that right now, a lot of EV vehicle drivers and consumers might not know this, but there's a $4,000 bill waiting for them. And that's really because of recycling. That's the cost of recycling about lift and battery.
Now the incentive though, is that back in a lot of these automotive companies, home countries, so that's Japan, that's China, Asia in general, half of all new countries, it is already mandated by law that the automaker has to be responsible at their own end of life batteries. Cause it makes way more sense to put this bill on the automaker than to put it onto consumer.
So all of our partners who are really international have seen, okay, well, we already have the infrastructure to recycle and repurpose these batteries. Now we're seeing north America moving towards this as well. We need to find the right partners to be able to manage these batteries for us so that we don't have to incur that $4,000 bill.
Jason Jacobs: So they're giving them to you to avoid the fee, basically?
Eddy Chiang: Exactly, exactly. So right now it is wild west. For some auto manufacturers, we're able to pay them something very, very small, but that's really because they give us, they give us data for our product development, especially with our battery management system, really like the data is what's the battery quality like, what was the battery environment and how they were performing when it was still in the vehicle? All that's really great data for us.
But on the flip side, there are some automotive companies that don't provide us with any data. So for them, the alternative of just giving the batteries to us, either us charging them, or even in some cases, just giving the batteries to us for free is, well, we have to pay recyclers [laughs] that huge fee. So they just essentially give it to us by them paying us as well.
Jason Jacobs: Uh-huh [affirmative]. And then once you have the batteries, what is it that the moment solution encapsulates? So the batteries you're not producing, you're getting them from the vehicle manufacturers, what are you actually doing with them? And then how is the solution packaged that you're providing to fulfill the applications that you mentioned?
Eddy Chiang: Yeah, great question. So the whole process for us is that we get the batteries tested already, which is great. We know approximately what the quality is and we, again, we get a lot of the data in terms of what the history of the battery was.
For us in house, we do do additional validation just to make sure that, you know, the data sheets and everything and all the data that we're getting are correct. And just for extra safety, then there's also some testing that is required for certification and just safety, more that's required from us.
So from that stage, we actually get the batteries in module settings. So modules, as in for Nissan, you know, they're like kind of laptop size. You can hold them in your hands, from a lot of the other OEMs, they may be table size bigger, but you can still, you know, maybe they're a hundred pounds, so you can still move them.
But it's not like directly slipped out of the vehicle, that's pack size. We get it even taken apart from that, that end. So from the module ends is we, it's pretty simple actually, we just slip the modules into our own cabinets enclosures. When you look at it, yes, as you see, yeah, this is a pretty typical and stationary storage application type cabinet.
Then we do a lot of cycle testings just to make sure that everything's playing well together. And we attach a battery management system is the final piece. So that battery management system again, is meant to charge and discharge the batteries for safety. So that there's nothing, especially with lithium batteries, everything is nice and safe, but also efficient as well.
Jason Jacobs: And is that yours, that BMS is yours or is that something that you're licensing or utilizing from someone else?
Eddy Chiang: Yeah, so it's both, depending on the project. So over the past projects we've been deploying, you know, an off the shelf BMS, and that's how we really know that off the shelf BMS is a new BMSs are, are not meant to for second life batteries. They're meant for new lithium batteries.
For ourselves essentially that battery management system takes in all that data we collect, utilizing somebody else's BMS over the past, you know, year or two, and then we train it on that machine learning algorithm aspect. And, and it just constantly gets better to essentially predict degradation, to predict how the batteries potentially are going to, how these modules are gonna degrade faster than the other modules. And then from that aspect, control the safety from it and constantly learn there.
Jason Jacobs: Uh-huh [affirmative]. Got it. And, and so what is the Moment Energy special sauce?
Eddy Chiang: Yeah, so it is definitely that battery management system. So what essentially the battery management system is doing ours versus others is others, you know, again, they just do the charging and discharging capabilities. They don't really learn at all. [laughs].
Again, it's, it's mainly because when you have a new lithium battery, when you charge and discharge, it's very predictable how a hundred percent state of health batteries can degrade.
Now with a different state of health batteries, one is prediction of how it's gonna degrade, but two is okay, well, if there are really good, you know, 90% state of health batteries in this battery pack versus 80% state of health batteries in this battery pack, let's put a little bit more stress on these specific modules. So that one, we can actually extend the overall life of the battery pack by a couple years.
But then two is, yeah, now that we're stressing less of that lower quality battery, we can actually unlock greater usable energy or usable capacity. Again, when we have a 90% state of health battery with an 80% state of health battery, the whole system acts like that 80% state of health with a dumb BMS. So you can imagine when you fully discharge that battery, there's actually still about 10% of usable energy kind of stuck in there if we use a dumb off the shelf, current BMS.
So for us, by putting extra stress and really just drawing energy from that specific higher quality cell, then we can actually utilize that extra bit of energy that's available.
Jason Jacobs: Uh-huh [affirmative]. And then the, the applications that you mentioned. So take that island home. For example, you mentioned that there's diesel generators, you mentioned that there's alternative battery solutions. What do you think you're competing against and what is the pitch when it comes to ROI relative to existing alternatives?
Eddy Chiang: For sure. Yeah. So I mean there, in terms of energy storage, every off-grid individual has essentially known that you need energy storage because solar it's really great and they wanna be as renewable as possible, cause you're literally living in, in nature in the woods. And so you wanna be as renewable as possible, but solar is very intermittent.
The sun only wants to be out when it wants to be out. Same with wind. The wind's only blowing when it wants to blow. So you need energy stores to really capture that energy so that they can use it at well night times or whenever they need that energy.
The diesel generator, again, for them, it's a source of energy, but them again live in the middle of nowhere a lot of times. So going out and driving for fuel all the time is a lot of times not sustainable and, and a huge hassle, but as well as just not environmentally friendly.
So energy storage has always been in the front of their mind, in terms of competitors, there's really two, one is lead acid. Again, their performance has been pretty bad where their cycle life is low. Also the power output is very low as well.
So that's what, why again, uh, lead acid battery is supposed to last, let's say 10 years, right? That's what they pitched. But then in reality, they last like a month because you're drawing too much power from it. You're cycling it too hard.
The third aspect is maintenance where you lit every week, depending on how much you use it actually could be even more frequent. Every week you have to pour new acid in. So literally with one of our sites, when we were in an off grid home, Gabe, our CTO, he was helping with the decommissioning of their current lead acid batteries.
Like, he like burnt himself in his hand when he was like moving these batteries cause of all that acid. So it's not safe as well. And, and with also lead acid batteries, they off gas, hydrogen. So we probably all learned in chemistry class that hydrogen's extremely flammable, as well as you shouldn't be breathing that in, cause that's very poisonous. So that's one aspect.
So a lot of them are looking for solutions to move away from lead acid. But the, the other solution is then what has been available is new lithium. So new lithium and especially these, you know, non utility scale applications. So again, commercial, industrial, but also residential it's very expensive, mainly because nobody's really creating products for them. And when they are creating products, they're charging way too much for the lithium product.
But the second aspect is there have been a lot of off-grid individuals that have the money for it, but you know, they, they've heard of the terrible, terrible things that are happening in areas like the Congo and, and South Africa where the lithium mining, the cobalt mining is just hugely, hugely negatively impacting both the environmental, but also social landscapes that they don't wanna be a part of that.
So for them when they heard, oh, there are second life batteries. These batteries have already been mined, mainly for a different application, right? If we repurpose them for our stationary storage application, new lithium and new cobalt and new heavy metals, aren't required to be mined for my stationary storage application.
And therefore also the story is then when we repurpose them for another 7, 10, 15 years, we can recycle them responsibly. And then that will hopefully go back into EVs and create that full circle. And that's really what means a lot to a lot of our clients, especially the ones who are, you know, in Canada, our indigenous peoples as well when the environment means a lot to them.
Jason Jacobs: Uh-huh [affirmative]. So I heard safety, I heard ethical considerations. I heard more sustainable solution. How does the cost compare?
Eddy Chiang: Yeah, so right now our costs, [laughs] so it's been pretty cool. When we talk to customers and we hear like, hey, what are you willing to pay for second life batteries? What's been really cool is again, we, second life batteries we get them on average 80% with some of our supplies. We've been getting them above 80, which has been super exciting.
So the really good quality batteries, but we know of course on the second life end, we, customers are always gonna be like, oh well they're repurposed. So I wanna pay a little bit less than if they were totally new, which is totally fair. So as a company we've learned, okay, customers are willing to pay two thirds of the cost, which is essentially means they want a 33% discount on their battery if their second life.
But the cool thing is for us at moment is we're currently 55% cheaper than new lithium batteries, even after making, you know, our, your standard one time sales margin. So it's essentially showing that we're so cost effective, that we can either make more margins or provide a cheaper battery to our customers.
Jason Jacobs: So then how important are these other things that you mentioned, safety, ethics, sustainability? Are they factoring heavily into the customer decision process or is it cost alone that's driving these purchases?
Eddy Chiang: Yeah. So that's exactly why we chose our target markets off grid on grid, commercial, industrial, versus in even larger settings like utility scale. Everybody really has been getting into utility scale when it comes to energy storage and for them the utility scale, it's a fight to the bottom. Whoever has the cheapest battery wins.
And of course, kinda like I mentioned, we're always gonna be cheaper, which is very exciting, but we don't want to start off in a market where that's the only reason why you win, where batteries are essentially a commodity.
That's exactly why we chose residential off grid, commercial industrial off grid, on grid because they care about other characteristics such as the environmental ESGs, this one major aspect safety, again, like you just mentioned is also a major aspect and also discharge capabilities. Again in an electric vehicle, they charge and discharge at a much higher stress factor than a typical lithium battery.
So what we're working on is how do we extract the most output, the power output from the batteries? Have it still less stressful, let's say rather than having it discharging charging at five to 8C or that stress factor, why don't we just downsize it to, you know, 1.5 or C or even a slightly greater where now they're out of the vehicle and they're being a lot, lot less stressed application, but then compared to new lithium batteries, we have higher discharge and, and we can really serve these clients that, that need a battery only for maybe two hours in the day. So they need a battery that can discharge really quickly. Let's say, now, rather than over 10 hours, which is a very slow application.
Jason Jacobs: And I mean, it, it sounds like these off grid projects have been a beachhead market. And this, this application as storage has been the entry point from an offering standpoint, how do you think about the customer target as you grow? And you know, how much will you expand? How rapidly will you expand versus staying focused where you are, and then same question around the types of projects that you're serving these customers for?
Eddy Chiang: Yeah. So what, what we're really seeing, yeah, off grid has been amazing for us because they have just a huge need for energy storage, where they're underserved, really the current products that they have choices in buying aren't serving their needs in terms of performance-wise cost-wise and, and whatnot.
And so therefore they're willing to, over the past couple of years, they've been willing to pay to essentially utilize their sites as test facilities for us. And also within off grid, it's been super great because they will use the battery every day.
Lead acid batteries essentially tell the customers like, please don't use our batteries because I mean, they know how little cycle lives they have and, and the performance, but for us, we're like, please use our batteries. We want you to use it every day so that we collect as much data for our own algorithms as possible.
So that's been a really great stepping stone now, as we're moving forward over the next couple of years, we're really seeing that the, the big market opportunities on grid, commercial industrial, and these are these manufacturing buildings, EV charging infrastructure, commercial buildings, which are really overstressing the grid.
And yeah, like we've been, I think I've been hearing a lot of other like podcasters and talk, individuals talking about like our grid's very fragile. The moment it goes down, we're pretty much hooped and it'll take three days in some places for the grid to come back up because of how fragile it is.
So for us, we're seeing this hugely underserved application, for example, it's why is it underserved? We have some of our clients where, where, who we sell to are these renewable integrators. They install solar, they install energy storage into these commercial buildings. They go up to these large battery manufacturers like Panasonic or LG Chem and say, "Hey, we want a one mega one hour system."
And they're like, "Yeah, sure, no problem. Just give us a deposit." So they give the deposit and then a month before deployment, the renewable integrator goes back to these companies and say, "Hey, yeah, like we're ready to deploy. Where's, where's our battery?" And they say, "Just kidding. We've actually never created a product at the size, cause for us, this is too small."
Even though megawatt hours is like a shipping container. It's, it's not physically, it's not even that small, therefore give the deposit back and said, "You're kind of on your own." So that's really how underserved this market is. And, and again, they need a short duration, a battery that can discharge during these peaks from the utilities for that last of brown, you know, an hour, two hours to four hours, something that's shorter duration.
And what everybody else is really focused on is is that utility scale, long duration football fields worth of energy storage. So yeah, so that's why we're really focused on our current markets of commercial industrial.
Jason Jacobs: Uh-huh [affirmative]. And where does the Powerwall fit into all this and also where do EVs themselves fit into all this, given that it sounds like we're starting to hear more about EVs becoming storage in their own. Right I know that the, for lightning, for example, is positioning themselves that way and it seems like other EVs will be fast to follow.
Eddy Chiang: Yeah. I, it's super exciting. What we're also seeing also along the lines of the last question as well, what we're seeing is there's actually a very, there's a very low supply of energy storage right now. I mean, that's also of course exaggerated by current supply chain issues for our hardware in general, but we've essentially talked to a lot of the other new lithium energy storage companies. And they're like, "Yeah, we are sold out for the next two years. Like we essentially have no more supply."
The demand is there and it's huge. And everybody knows that energy storage is a huge need than every transitioning, so which is giving us a huge lead and a lot of people have been interested in us because well, we're a major supply that nobody else has been able to unlock, but with our technology and, and our partnerships, we're able to unlock for energy storage and for the whole market.
Now going back to electric B to G, so vehicle's a grid infrastructure, right? Utilizing your own vehicle to, you know, charge up your home or even give back to the grid and reduce the stress on the grid. But we think that's, that's actually a really great swing for a lot of consumers to help lessen the load on the grid, even potentially make money on it, which is cool.
Same with the Tesla Powerwall. There are some markets such as I can talk about in, in Canada specifically, but in Ontario where you can sell energy back to the grid and even potentially make money. Actually Alberta's is one major case too. So it's like arbitrage, which is super cool.
Now within the Tesla Powerwall though, we kind of have a signal from Tesla that they're moving away from the Tesla Powerwall, mainly because as engineers we've found well, they barely make any money on, on the hardware. It's super cheap. It's actually pretty compelling. If you are able to get your hands on one, but now they've essentially said, hey you have to buy our solar first before you can even have access to our Powerwall.
Which one is for a lot of Americans, we notice that nobody really likes their solar, unfortunately, but their side is here in Canada, we've never had access to solar. They just never sold it here. So therefore they've, they've said, yeah, Canadians can't buy our product.
And the reasoning is because we're seeing Tesla has been using the Tesla Powerwall as more of like marketing so that when they do these huge projects, like the one in Australia, that's really where they make the money, but we're still seeing a lot of people try it. For example, in areas like South Korea, um, there are battery companies out there that are trying to do a Powerwall type product.
And then again with Ford and the Ford lightning, we're seeing that VGs been super cool. The one thing that I think maybe in terms of investors, what we should be looking at is how fast you can actually discharge that battery into your home.
Like I just got an EV today and charging that thing takes forever [laughs] if you are at home. So I think if for a lot of the startups and the companies that are really able to speed up the charging and discharging of a vehicle to and from the home, that would be one major key in really unlocking your, your own car in as a battery source.
Jason Jacobs: So I, I think what I'm hearing is that you see that there's white space both in off grid and in maybe some of these smaller projects that aren't as attractive to some of these larger manufacturers where the unique technology that you have to cobble together, these batteries that are getting put back into the system for second life isn't gonna run the table and serve every application best, but can serve this neglected, but very large market best and help accelerate the transition for everybody.
Eddy Chiang: Absolutely. Yeah. And what's been super interesting is, is the supply of batteries. Like it's been projected by McKinsey that by 2030, there's gonna be 200 to 300 Gigot hours of energy storage available. Like, sorry, end of life EV energy storage available.
So even with recyclers with second life companies, multiple second life companies popping up, like, it'll be a huge team effort to ensure these batteries don't end up at landfills, but also creating value out of these batteries.
And then therefore that's, that's again why a lot of the new lithium companies have been interested at working with companies like us as, as a buyer, because we can unlock this huge supply as right now, they're majorly, majorly supply constrain over the next couple of years.
Jason Jacobs: And where are you in terms of the stage of the company and your progress to date?
Eddy Chiang: Yeah, well, of course Jason knows because you guys are an investor, so we closed, uh, a seed round in September. So that's been, that was honestly a huge learning experience and a great experience for us because we really feel like we've started ourselves with the best clean tech and, and genuine and investors and partners, uh, to date, which has been super exciting in terms of our progress and, and utilizing a lot of our raise in the funding.
We've actually been able to leverage a lot of Canadian government funding, which has been great and we've been just expanding really quickly. So we, the story I like to tell is a year ago today, it was just the four co-founders. And I think we just hired our very first business intern and we were still working out of half of our co-founders Marines garage. We didn't even get a full garage.
And we were taking a apart Nissan Leaf packs and, and repurposing them for our stationary storage application. So, and then now we're a team. We have our own facility, we have a team of 20 now, and we're looking to possibly expand even more in the next couple months. And we're really in just manufacturing production mode.
On our supply end, we have a huge amount of supply and the OEMs have really doubled down on, hey, you guys are our North American partners and, and we have a huge supply for you guys when you guys are ready to expand quickly and build quickly, just let us know.
And then on the client side, again, like they're, everybody's trying to clamor for energy storage and how everybody's ran out of energy storage, mainly because all lithium and, and these chemicals that are needed for and materials needed to make lithium batteries are all going into EVs rather than going to stationary storage.
So, so now on the client side, they're saying, yes, we [laughs] need as many batteries as you can produce. So the stage that we're at is we're just trying to produce faster, which has been really exciting and really scaling up from more customized solutions to mass producing one solution and at small to medium scale.
Jason Jacobs: And if you could change one thing that's outside of the scope of your control, that would most accelerate your progress, what would you change and how would you change it?
Eddy Chiang: Yeah, well, especially in North America, it's, it's really accelerating the mandate of automakers taking responsibility of their own end of life batteries, be it for us repurposing and ensuring that these batteries are not prematurely wasted. And yeah, and the reasoning for that is because we've talked to a lot of the American new OEMs that have just come up with cars and they honestly have no clue what's going on.
[laughs] Maybe they have other problems too, with their current vehicles that they're really trying to put out fires. But they don't, haven't really thought about what to do with their end of life batteries right now in their minds. Like, well, we're not responsible for it.
So we're just gonna let the market and the consumer take on that build, which is not fair at all, cause that, that'll really slow down the transition and decarbonization of transport. So no, we know that these big companies will instantly change once mandates have popped up.
And again, we know that other countries who are surprisingly usually behind us in climate change type policy have already mandated this. What we're just really asking is that we catch up in North America and both America and the United States and in terms of recycling and, and repurposing policies.
Jason Jacobs: Great. And if you look, let's say 10 years out and you're successful beyond your wildest dreams with Moment Energy, what have you achieved?
Eddy Chiang: Yeah, well for us, we, in 10 years, our goal is to achieve that every single electric vehicle battery is repurposed. Does that mean that every single battery is touched by myself? No, but it essentially means that we've developed the technology, the battery management system, the platform where a lot of other additional second life companies and incumbents come in, but we enable them to really create a safe, reliable, sustainable product by, you know, opening up that platform for them to build on, and licensing out our, our technology to them.
And really ensuring that these batteries that are totally totally high quality and good for use is not prematurely sent to landfills is the major key, but then also not prematurely recycled as well.
Jason Jacobs: And for anyone listening, who's inspired about your work, who do you wanna hear from, how can the MCJ community be helpful to you?
Eddy Chiang: Yeah, I mean like every [laughs] startup out there we've always been looking to hire. For us we're looking really, for really talented engineers, business development staff, and as well as manufacturing staff to help us with our current phase and growth and, and scale up. So you can contact me at my email @edward@momentenergy.ca or you can check us out on, on our website, which is just momentenergy.ca.
And yeah, on the automotive side, if you have connections with any automotive company that where you feel that is not being sustainable enough, but you know that they can have the decision making to really help make that automotive company more sustainable, then feel free to connect us as well.
Jason Jacobs: And Eddie, anything I didn't ask that I should have or any parting words for listeners?
Eddy Chiang: Yeah. I mean, for us, we really just are really thankful for you Jason for allowing me and our team to really grow as a company and also spread the word about this, this huge problem that a [laughs] lot of EV drivers don't really realize. And yeah, we're just super appreciative of that.
Jason Jacobs: Awesome. Well, so inspired by your work and your progress. So thanks so much for coming on the show and best of luck to you and the whole Moment Energy team.
Eddy Chiang: Thanks Jason. You too.
Jason Jacobs: Hey everyone, Jason here. Thanks again for joining me on My Climate Journey. If you'd like to learn more about the journey, you can visit us @myclimatejourney.co. Note that is .co not .com. Someday we'll get the .com, but right now .co.
You can also find me on Twitter @JJacobs22, where I would encourage you to share your feedback on the episode or suggestions for future guests you'd like to hear. And before I let you go, if you enjoyed the show, please share an episode with a friend or consider leaving a review on iTunes. The lawyers made me say that. Thank you.
