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Q&A

Eric Dresselhuys, CEO of ESS, Makes the Case for Iron-Flow Batteries

An interview about the politics of energy storage — and whether different technologies can help

Eric Dresselhuys
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While in Anaheim for RE+ last week, I met with Eric Dresselhuys, CEO of long duration iron-flow battery storage manufacturer ESS Inc. We chatted about battery fires, community buy-in, and the future of China policy. I came in expecting optimism and left feeling we need a lot more conversations like this one.

The following is an abridged version of our conversation that has been edited for clarity.

How does your product address the opinion that battery storage has a buy-in problem?

It’s not so much an opinion as just reporting the obvious, which is that lithium-ion batteries on the grid have a buy-in problem. Maybe if you’re in rural western Australia nobody cares because there are no human beings around, but if you look at the need for energy storage to facilitate the energy transition, it’s pretty clear we have to put batteries all over the place and specifically close to where human beings live. And that’s a problem.

Can iron-flow help solve that problem? I think unequivocally we can. It’s a very different architecture. It’s a battery that’s really designed from the beginning to operate as a grid backup battery. If you go back to look at lithium, it was never designed to go onto the grid. It was designed to go into camcorders, phones. This is not the technology I think anybody would’ve picked for the grid if they had started from scratch.

Are you seeing any change in demand for your product from protests over lithium battery projects?

I think it’s the old gag of all politics are local. The politics of siting is a local problem. What’s simultaneously true is adoption of storage on the grid is growing at a phenomenally high rate. And yet there are stories [about opposition] all over the place. There was just one up in Marin County, California, where the community said it’s in an area adjacent to wetlands. And they said you know what? We’re just not going to put a–

But are these communities opposed to lithium storage actually choosing iron-flow over these projects, or are they just saying no to any development?

Right now, they’re just saying no. The communities are not going to solve the problem. They’re going to tell you what is unacceptable and it’s going to be somebody else’s job to solve the problem.

I’ll use Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam [as an example]. They said, we have thousands of gallons of jet fuel laying around. And people. And airplanes. We can’t put a lithium battery out here. So they’re using an iron-flow and sought out a non-lithium battery to solve their energy storage problems because it was safer.

China policy looms large over the future of U.S. battery supplies. What do you think the final endgame will be of our approach to China’s dominance in this business segment?

It’s a great question that I don’t think I know the answer to. I think the next step is to try and get the playing field somewhat level. The amount of subsidy that goes into renewables in general and batteries in particular in China is daunting. People talk about the IRA and all these things as if it’s a lot of money, but it’s a pittance compared to what China is putting in.

Getting the playing field a little more level in the short term through a combination of incentives here and tariffs coming on will be a next step. Until we get carbon accounting — cradle-to-grave carbon accounting — it’ll be hard to get things totally level because in the U.S. we enforce environmental laws and we don’t employ prison labor to build [these] things. Until we get that full ESG accounting, I think there’s going to be some limitation.

Okay one fun question – what was the last song you listened to? Keeping ‘em honest here at Heatmap News.

“Impossible Germany” by Wilco.

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Q&A

How Developers Should Think of the New IRA Credit Rules

A conversation with Scott Cockerham of Latham and Watkins.

How Developers Should Think of the New IRA Credit Rules
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This week’s conversation is with Scott Cockerham, a partner with the law firm Latham and Watkins whose expertise I sought to help me best understand the Treasury Department’s recent guidance on the federal solar and wind tax credits. We focused on something you’ve probably been thinking about a lot: how to qualify for the “start construction” part of the new tax regime, which is the primary hurdle for anyone still in the thicket of a fight with local opposition.

The following is our chat lightly edited for clarity. Enjoy.

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Hotspots

An Influential Anti-ESG Activist Targets A Wind Farm

And more of the week’s most important news around renewable energy conflicts.

Map of renewable energy fights.
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1. Carroll County, Arkansas – The head of an influential national right-wing advocacy group is now targeting a wind project in Arkansas, seeking federal intervention to block something that looked like it would be built.

  • Will Hild, executive director of Consumers’ Research, recently called on the Trump administration to intervene against the development of Scout Clean Energy’s Nimbus wind project in Arkansas. Consumers’ Research is known as one of the leading anti-ESG advocacy organizations, playing a key role in the “anti-woke” opposition against the climate- and socially-conscious behavior of everyone from utilities to Anheuser-Busch.
  • In a lengthy rant posted to X earlier this month, Hild pointed to Carroll County’s local moratorium on wind projects and claimed Nimbus being built would be “a massive win for ESG radicals – and a slap in the face for local democracy.”
  • As I told you in April, the Nimbus project prompted Carroll County to enact the moratorium but it was grandfathered in because of contracts signed prior to the ban’s enactment.
  • However, even though Nimbus is not sited on federal land, there is a significant weak point for the project: its potential impacts on endangered birds and bats.
  • Scout Clean Energy has been working with the Fish and Wildlife Service since at least 2018 under Trump 1.0. However, the project’s habitat conservation plan was not completed before the start of the current Trump term and Scout did not submit an application for Nimbus to receive an incidental take permit from the Service until May of this year.
  • Enter the Trump administration’s bird-centric wind power crackdown and the impact of Hild’s commentary comes into fuller focus. What will happen to all the years of work that Scout and the Service did? It’s unclear how the project reckons with this heightened scrutiny and risk of undue federal attention.

2. Suffolk County, New York – EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin this week endorsed efforts by activists on Long Island to oppose energy storage in their neighborhoods.

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Spotlight

Trump’s Permit Freeze Prompts Some Solar to Eye Exits

Is there going to be a flight out of Nevada?

Solar in Nevada.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

Donald Trump’s renewables permitting freeze is prompting solar companies to find an escape hatch from Nevada.

As I previously reported, the Interior Department has all but halted new approvals for solar and wind projects on federal lands. It was entirely unclear how that would affect transmission out west, including in the solar-friendly Nevada desert where major lines were in progress to help power both communities and a growing number of data centers. Shortly after the pause, I took notice of the fact that regulators quietly delayed the timetable by at least two weeks for a key line – the northern portion of NV Energy’s Greenlink project – that had been expected to connect to a litany of solar facilities. Interior told me it still planned to complete the project in September, but it also confirmed that projects specifically necessary for connecting solar onto the grid would face “enhanced” reviews.

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