James Larsen is Building a Better Battery
The e-Zinc CEO on what it will take to achieve the energy transition, and why you should take a chance on volunteering
Welcome to the first installment of Building Better, a newsletter about Canadian business leaders tackling hard problems with positive impact.
This week, I’m very excited to share the work of James Larsen with you.
James is the CEO of e-Zinc, a long-duration energy storage company powering the clean energy transition. He is also a Director on the Boards of the Long Duration Energy Storage Council as well as Energy Storage Canada. James holds a BSc in Mechanical Engineering from Queen's University and an MBA from the Ivey Business School at Western University.
Meet James Larsen
When James Larsen was in high school, he decided he was going to devote his career to helping the environment by using technology.
Today, he has more than made good on that commitment.
As CEO of e-Zinc, Larsen is leading the commercialization of a new kind of battery that is poised to break one of the biggest bottlenecks in the world’s energy transition: long-duration energy storage.
Why Batteries?
It has been obvious for decades that to stem the worst effects of climate change, the world must switch from fossil fuels to renewable energy. But even though renewable energy sources like solar and wind are now cost-competitive with fossil fuels, a lack of adequate energy storage options is hindering mass adoption.
The world has enough renewable energy sources to meet human energy demand, but we haven’t yet mastered how to capture it. Solar panels, for instance, are only useful when the sun shines. When it doesn’t, most people rely on fossil fuel-based backup sources, like diesel generators. This intermittency problem is a major barrier in the mass-scale adoption of renewable energy. If renewable energy producers could store excess energy, the need for backup fossil fuels would all but disappear.
Engineers have been trying to build batteries to meet this need for years, but current options remain unsuitable for large-scale applications like buildings or grid systems.
Larsen came face to face with this problem while working on energy storage projects in Chile and Colombia. Utility companies, he observed, were keen to transition to renewables, but the battery infrastructure wasn’t developed enough to make them a reliable source of power.
“I realized this was a tidal wave coming at us,” he told me. “There was an immense need for energy storage to help build up renewable energy generation…and [existing] short-duration technologies like lithium-ion batteries were not going to cut it.”
Larsen began seeking out opportunities to dig deeper into the problem and, in 2018, he had the good fortune of meeting Dr. Gregory Zhang through a mutual industry colleague. Zhang, an MIT-educated scientist, had recently developed a new type of zinc battery. His innovation could release energy for 24-100+ hours—longer than any existing battery—while using cheaper, more abundant materials. Zhang’s fledgling start-up, e-Zinc, had enormous potential, but he needed someone with business expertise to help take it to the next level. For both Larsen and Zhang, it was a perfect match.
e-Zinc’s Battery
e-Zinc’s batteries consist of a tank with two sections, one for charging and the other for discharging, filled with an electrolyte with zinc dissolved in it.
In the first chamber, electrodes connected to a power source send electric charges into the solution, causing the dissolved zinc to convert into its solid form. This process produces hard zinc pellets that have stored the electricity as electrochemical potential energy.
In the discharge section at the bottom, these zinc pellets are stored until needed. When air is injected into the battery, the zinc dissolves back into the water, releasing energy that can be used in nearly any application. The dissolved zinc eventually returns to the electrodes, where the cycle starts again.
e-Zinc’s battery offers several advantages over conventional batteries and generators:
Longer storage: Electricity stored in solid zinc pellets retains energy almost indefinitely, avoiding charge loss between uses. Time-in-use can last between 10 and 100+ hours, much more than the four hours of use-time offered by conventional lithium-ion batteries..
Low cost and sustainable: Zinc is abundant and less expensive than lithium. About 30% of the global zinc supply comes from recycled sources.
Safety: Unlike flammable lithium batteries, e-Zinc’s batteries are water-based and fire-resistant.
Flexibility: The battery system can adapt to the needs of different projects by decoupling energy from power.
Revenue-generating: Unlike fossil-fuel generators, e-Zinc’s systems give users the option to sell unused energy back to the grid, transforming backup power from a cost center to a profit center.
These features make e-Zinc’s batteries better suited to the task of long-term energy storage than other batteries, and in many cases, the net cost of use is even lower than that of diesel generators.
A Bright Future
When I spoke with Larsen, he was at e-Zinc’s newly opened 42,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in Mississauga.
The company has come a long way from the “garage band” operation Larsen remembers from its early days. This year, e-Zinc is undertaking pilot projects with the California Energy Commission to provide backup power during California’s fire-season outages.
By 2028, e-Zinc aims to offer commercial products that will displace diesel generators in buildings and manufacturing facilities. Next, the company plans to expand applications to remote communities, such as remote industrial towns or small islands relying on off-grid fossil fuels. Ultimately, Larsen envisions a world where e-Zinc’s batteries provide storage to enable fully renewable power grids.
So far, they are right on track.
Building in Canada
e-Zinc’s Canadian roots have been crucial to its success.
“Canada is extremely good at fostering innovation,” says Larsen.
e-Zinc has received funding from numerous Canadian and American venture capital funds such as Toyota Ventures and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, as well as millions of dollars in non-dilutive funding from Canadian institutions like Sustainable Development Technology Canada, Natural Resources Canada, Ontario Centre for Innovation, and more. The company remains over 50% Canadian-owned.
“I’m tremendously grateful for all the financial support because we wouldn’t be here without these organizations believing in e-Zinc.”
Still, there is room for improvement. Risk aversion remains high among Canadian investors, posing challenges for hardware innovations that require years of development and testing to prove viability. Companies innovating in this space can produce revolutionary products but need more support than other sectors with lower startup costs, like software.
“[We need] companies and governments to be more willing to take on the risk of being a test bed for early-stage technologies,” says Larsen.
Advice to Young Innovators
For those looking to follow in Larsen’s footsteps, he passed down a piece of advice his uncle shared with him when he graduated from university: The best opportunities in life often come from volunteering.
“I thought about that and said, okay, there’s an important message there…You don’t need to chase money. Chase your passion and what you’re curious and excited about. Let that drive your career.”
Putting the advice into action, Larsen dropped off a letter offering to volunteer at NRC’s Institute for Fuel Cell Innovation. Later, he received a call from a man who happened to be the Canada Research Chair in Fuel Cells. “We don’t allow volunteers,” he told Larsen. “So how about I just hire you?”
Twenty years later, Larsen’s early work on fuel cells has brought him full circle, once again working to bring sustainable batteries to the world.
Thanks for reading Building Better! If you’re interested in more stories like these, subscribe below. And if you know someone who you think I should feature here, shoot me a message in the comments below, or on Linkedin.