AluminAiry wins down-payment to begin development on a potential TVA pilot
The Founder of AluminAiry, Brian Washington pitched his battery start-up at the 11th annual Opportunities in Energy Event.
Brian Washington, the Founder of AluminAiry walked across the stage at the Tennessee Advanced Energy Business Council Opportunities in Energy event on Tuesday afternoon. He shook the hands of Miles Biggs, the Manager of Ecosystem Partnerships, and Curt Jawdy, the Senior Manager of Operational Research and Support at the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) while accepting $10,000 he didn’t know was being awarded.
For the first year ever, TVA granted a “down payment” to one innovator in the Spark Cleantech Accelerator to support the development of a potential pilot project with TVA
Washington first debuted his innovative aluminum-ion battery technology at the regional I-Corps in early 2024. He believes there are ways to capture energy produced from air electrode structures for use in aluminum-air batteries. This would allow the U.S. to step away from lithium-dependencies, which need to be sources from overseas.
The Spark Cleantech Accelerator is a part of the Spark Innovation Center at the University of Tennessee Research Park at Cherokee Farms. This year, it selected six founders with cleantech innovations to participate. Additionally, the new 2024 cohort of the Innovation Crossroads program also participated in the Spark programming for the past six months.
With the program coming to a close, the participating start-ups were offered an opportunity to pitch their innovations at the “Opportunities in Energy” event.
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