Lithium has become a default choice for battery-powered systems, but it is becoming more difficult to ignore its limits from chains of plating to a short age. Offgay Energy LabsIn India, a deep tech startup, wants to make lithium less central, especially when it comes to battery storage.
In IIT Kanpur, 7-year-old Startup has developed a proprietary Zinc-based battery system as an alternative to lithium-ion technology. Startup said that Zinjal is called 80-90 % of the energy efficiency of traditional lithium batteries, but at a significantly low level of storage.
As the demand for electricity is increasing worldwide, countries are increasing efforts to increase renewable energy storage. India, as a prominent nation in this regard, aims to increase its non-powerful energy capacity ten times-from 50 Gigwat to 500 Gigwat – By 2030. New Delhi is also Target 236 Gigwat hours By 2031-32, battery energy storage capacity and announced a $ 54 billion (approximately $ 612 million) funding plan to develop a 30-GW-hour battery storage system in the country in June. However, like many global markets, India also faces an important challenge: China dominated China over lithium supply chain.
Offgrade Energy Labs are conditioning that its zinc battery technology can reduce supply barriers by using widely available materials and offering more costly alternatives for lithium -based systems.
Now, Startup has collected 15 million in the series A Fund to enhance its work. It plans to facilitate a 10 MW hour demonstration in the UK, which will be expected by the first quarter of 2026, and will begin to trade Zincjal in the subsequent constituencies.
In an interview, “We should not only remove any difference in the market from any application point of view, but we should make it financially viable, because in the past there have been technology and batteries globally, which are the solution, but they are so expensive that they have not been widely adopted.”
Kosarkar, who has a PhD from IIT Kanpur, laid the foundation of off -grade energy labs in the Institute’s Startup Incubation and Innovation Center in 2018, as well as the Bander Tolachin (also PhD from IIT Kanpur), Rishi Srivastova, and Ankur Agarwal. The team observed that while lithium batteries are appropriate for movement, the stationary storage market was brought to fruition-and there are batteries needed that are more secure, more flexible and supply chain that is easy to access.
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Startup has spent its first six years in the development of battery technology and has so far acquired more than 25 IP families and more than 50 IP assets, including the United States, the United Kingdom, and India, as well as China, Australia and Japan. The battery is based on zinc bromide chemistry with a proprietary water -based electrolyte, which reduces the risk of fire.
Kosarkar said that Zinjal is capable of handling longer costs (6-12 hours) in its lifetime, and it can last a longer longer than a common lithium-ion battery. In addition, the battery uses carbon -based cathodes for both rapidly charging and discharge.
Zinc is no new concept in batteries, and some companies have already offered zinc bromide -based batteries, including Nes Deck Listed. EOS Energy Enterprises. However, Kosarkar noted that offgrade energy labs uses its patented assets that help reduce the cost. Zinjal batteries can also reduce the need for graphite use, which helps reduce their production costs.
“Finally, consumers care about the same performance, better price, or better performance, the same price, Srivastu told Tech Crunch.”
Offgrade energy labs technology has also been developed to allow the battery to tackle or subtract the battery based on the application. Srivastu said, which means that these zinc batteries can operate independently of environmental conditions and can provide energy storage at a temperature less than 10 degrees Celsius.
Startup industries are targeting with pure zero targets that want to maximize use of renewable energy by integrating battery storage. Its batteries are also being searched for applications such as top shifting and decentralization, off -grid energy solution. Shell – who invested in offgrade during his seeds through his corporate venture arm – and the initial testers included Tata Power. The beginning is also in talks with global players, including Europe’s Anil Group, so that batteries can be prepared according to their specific use issues.
So far, the off Grade Energy Labs has manually built its battery in the tinkering lab in Noida, Uttar Pradesh. However, Startup plans to take advantage of its convenience in the UK next year to showcase their technology.
Srivastu said that the UK facility will have a 50 % less carbon foot print than the normal lithium battery giga factory, adding that startup has chosen easy manufacturing process to reduce both capital and operational costs.
Asked why the UK – and not India – was selected for its first convenience, Srivastu said Europe offers a strong ecosystem and is already the center of battery manufacturing. Startups already have co -founders of the UK to help local operations, Kosarkar and Tulachen. Nevertheless, Startup views India as an important market when batteries are ready for commercial in 2026.
The series A -round was led by Archchie Chemicals, a special chemical manufacturer based in Chennai, which now holds 21 % shares in the startup, with an incorporative capital.
Srivastu told Tech Crunch that Archind’s participation is a strategic alignment, as the publicly listed company has a lot of expertise in bromance manufacturing and supply chain management.
Startup costs about $ 58 million after $ 58 million.