Feb 9, 2022

BY JOHN COXjcox@bakersfield.com Courtesy of Rondo Energy A series of demonstration projects set to launch this year in Kern County will help test the commercial viability of a thermal energy storage technology designed to put renewable electricity to use powering high-heat industrial processes. Oakland-based tech company Rondo Energy said the various installations will be financed by $22 million in new investment announced Tuesday. The company operates around the world, and not all the money will necessarily be spent locally. Rondo's roots reach back to GlassPoint Solar Inc., a Fremont company that until its closure a few years ago had hoped to help Bakersfield-based oil company Aera Energy LCC turn water and sunlight into steam for production of crude in western Kern. Two senior executives at GlassPoint and some of its engineering team helped introduce a system that still accounts for most solar heat used in industry, thanks to a massive installation the company built in Oman. One of those execs, Rondo CEO John O'Donnell, said the new venture delivers on GlassPoint's promise by using a different technology that doesn't rely on direct sunlight but instead converts intermittent electricity to heat measuring up to 2,200 degrees. That energy is stored in bricks for continuous delivery, night and day, even if electricity generation goes offline. O'Donnell said he sees Kern as the "critical ground-zero first place" where the company's technology will have a big impact. "We've gotten some of the team back together and (we're) working on the same problem in a whole new way," he said. O'Donnell declined to name the company's partners in local industry that will host the demonstration project. But he said engineering has begun on at least two installations in Kern that will serve different sectors. He added that potential local applications of the technology range from food production to cement manufacturing to fuel production. A primary value of the technology is its ability to produce a continuous stream of high heat without emitting any greenhouse gasses. That could save local companies money they would otherwise spend buying emissions credits on California's cap-and-trade market. Carmichael Roberts, an executive at Breakthrough Energy Ventures, one of the companies behind the investment disclosed this week, said in a news release the cost of renewable energy has fallen steadily but that's been little help for industries that need high temperature process heat. The release estimated heavy industry accounts for about a third of global greenhouse gas emissions. "Rondo enables companies in industries such as cement, fuels, food and water desalination to reduce their emissions while also leveraging the falling costs of renewables," he stated. Lorelei Oviatt, Kern's top planner and director of the county's Planning and Natural Resources Department, said by email Tuesday Rondo's thermal energy process appears to have wide applicability in the county's industrial processes — "everything from green steel to conventional manufacturing and cement that needs both renewable energy as well as high temperature heat." "With Kern County's new future in carbon management industries and retrofitting our existing processes to be carbon neutral, this is the type of innovation we welcome, with the appropriate environmental review and permitting, to support our economic diversification direction," she wrote. O'Donnell said his own experience in local renewable energy dates back to a solar installation he helped develop about 15 years ago off Kimberlina Road and Highway 99. GlassPoint failed not because of technology but financing: O'Donnell said the company was basically competing against photovoltaic solar generation at a time when the price of that technology was falling quickly. The company had an agreement to build a 770-acre Belridge solar project that was going to be California's largest solar project, providing 850 megawatts of energy per year, replacing natural gas and cutting local carbon dioxide emissions. The project never got built. Rondo's approach is more flexible in several respects. Besides being adaptable to different kinds of industrial plants, the installation can either sell heat to customers on a per-unit basis or be purchased by the factory owner. Another benefit, O'Donnell said, is that owners of large photovoltaic solar arrays can sell to Rondo "heat batteries" prior to afternoon peaks when demand from other consumers is highest.