Chakratec, the 100% recyclable kinetic battery
Chakratec is an Israeli startup that has developed a green and recyclable kinetic battery.
With a design devoid of chemicals, the battery can support an infinite number of charge/discharge cycles as the energy is stored in a compartment in motion. It is this compartment in motion that gives its name to the company, since Chakra means wheel in Sanskrit.
This type of battery is much more expensive than the current market-leading technology, the lithium-ion battery. But Li-ion batteries cannot easily withstand more than one cycle per day. The company is therefore focusing its attention on applications requiring at least two daily cycles.
Electric vehicle charging stations, for example, represent an interesting opportunity. Today these stations take eight hours to fully charge cars, and manufacturers would like, in the interests of market development, vehicles to be fully charged within 20 minutes. The problem is that such a request would overload the grid, and that suppliers penalize such practices.
The use of batteries in the charging stations would be a solution, but Li-ion batteries are not suitable for this kind of application, which is where Chakratec come in.
The company presently offers its customers two products: The 3000 EnerQube (EQ3000): 3 kWh of capacity with an average power of 2 kW and peak at 4.7; and the EnerQube 50K (EQ50K), a ready to use system comprising 16 EQ3000.
The first deliveries are expected to begin in 2017, the price per kWh is estimated to range from €1500 to €1900 per kW.
