With its patent-pending thermal storage technology, Calectra provides zero-carbon, low-cost industrial process heat up to 1,600°C. Calectra converts low-cost, intermittent renewable electricity into high-temperature heat, stores it for up to days at a time, and delivers it to retrofitted industrial processes using a simple, inexpensive air-based heat transfer system.
FELLOWS
Nate Weger
Nate Weger is the co-founder and CTO of Calectra, where he is working to electrify high-temperature industrial process heat. Calectra's technology is based on his Ph.D. research at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. He specializes in heat transfer, with an emphasis on high-temperature energy systems, and has extensive experience decarbonizing industrial technologies. Weger has degrees in mechanical engineering from UC Berkeley (Ph.D.) and the University of Iowa (B.S.E.).
Pauliina Meskanen
Pauliina Meskanen is the co-founder and CEO of Calectra, where she is on a mission to electrify high-temperature industrial heat. Before this, she was an entrepreneur-in-residence at a Nordic early-stage venture capital (VC) fund and built the hard-tech climate innovation consultancy and media company, Survivaltech.club. She has worked as an investor/venture partner at three other VC funds and was an early employee at a Nordic VC-backed health-tech startup. She holds an M.Sc. in industrial engineering.
TECHNOLOGY
Critical Need
Industrial processes manufacture critical materials like cement, steel, glass, and aluminum for our societies. These processes require a lot of heat, with one-quarter of global energy going toward producing process heat for industrial manufacturing. Unfortunately, 90 percent of this industrial heat comes from fossil fuels, causing industrial heat to account for ten percent of global and nine percent of U.S. CO2 emissions. Existing solutions for decarbonizing high-temperature (700°C+) heat are expensive, prohibiting low-margin manufacturing industries from adopting large-scale heat decarbonization solutions.
Technology Vision
Calectra provides zero-carbon, low-cost, high-temperature (up to 1,600°C) heat for manufacturing industries via its power-to-heat thermal storage technology. Calectra takes advantage of low-cost electricity price windows and converts low-cost, off-peak renewable electricity into high-temperature heat, which it stores in its patent-pending bricks for up to days at a time. This heat is delivered at high temperatures (700-1,600°C) to industrial manufacturers using air as the heat transfer fluid. Calectra optimizes its material and system design for low-cost, high-temperature heat delivery.
Potential for Impact
With the widespread deployment of Calectra’s technology, Calectra can eliminate nearly two gigatonnes of global CO2 emissions annually by decarbonizing high-temperature (700-1,600°C) industrial process heat in hard-to-abate industries. Additionally, local communities near industrial manufacturing facilities would see health improvements due to a significant reduction in particulate emissions from fossil fuel combustion.
Website
Calectra