How to quickly build a large-scale solar power plant? Terabase Energy, a new solar energy startup, hopes to quickly build power plants through "robots" to achieve terawatt-scale (TW)-scale solar energy. This B round of financing has also received Bill Gates Breakthrough Energy Ventures (BEV), Prelude Ventures, etc. Company funding of $44 million.
Bill Gates has been focusing on energy for a long time, and he founded the Breakthrough Energy Venture Capital Fund which has invested in various energy storage and nuclear energy systems. In addition to Form Energy introduced in this article, there are also liquid metal batteries Ambri, sodium batteries Aquion Energy, thermal batteries Malta and carbon capture technology. Perhaps best known is Terra Power, a fourth-generation nuclear power technology company that claims to convert nuclear waste into fuel.
Terabase's goal is to quickly build solar farms and CEO Matt Campbell said the self-build technology would allow robotic arms to lift solar panels and connect them to a sun-tracking system to speed up plant construction and reduce costs. According to foreign media reports, to avoid commercial competition and the company refuses to share more details on the construction of solar power plants.
Terabase also makes its own software to manage solar farm design and construction. It also recently completed its first commercial project to install around 10 MW of solar capacity with a robotic arm. Tim Woodward, managing director of Prelude Ventures, said the company's software and automation platform enables developers and EPCs to efficiently design and manage power plants, an essential solution for solar stepping onto the world stage at a GW class.
It's just that 1 TW is about 1 million MW, so it is not so simple for this company to realize its goals. Campbell said it will take 50 years to build the world's first terawatt of solar, but we need to build at least another 50 terawatts soon to achieve global decarbonization goals. A new round of funding will allow the company to continue to grow the team while making the necessary investments to achieve its mission.
（Image：Terabase Energy ）