MetOx is thrilled to be selected for the latest round of funding from the US Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA-E). The agency is dedicated to identifying high-potential, high-impact energy technologies and has focused on novel superconducting technologies with this latest funding announcement.
The $3 million award will help MetOx continue to advance its proprietary manufacturing technology to meet the rising global demand for low-cost, high-temperature superconductors (HTS). Produced at scale, MetOx’s Xeus™ wire will support a variety of applications and can play a critical role in driving the energy transition by enabling offshore wind transmission, electric vehicle fleet charging, fusion power generation, and more.
With the ARPA-E funding, MetOx will transform its manufacturing in several key ways, focusing on improving material efficiency, increasing reactor throughput, and dramatically enhancing the performance of Xeus™. These improvements will increase the current-carrying capacity of the wire and provide significantly greater manufacturing yield.
“This award from ARPA-E is incredibly exciting for MetOx and will allow us to plan for, and work toward a revolutionary next-generation HTS product,” said Nagaraja Shashidhar, SVP Strategy at MetOx and principal investigator for the award. "Our customers require reliable supply of HTS at a price point that makes their products viable. The higher-performance HTS will require less wire to be used in devices, bringing down costs and enabling HTS products to win in the market.”
Xeus™ is poised to play a transformational role in addressing some of the biggest challenges related to our electric grid, as well as helping us capitalize on new, zero-carbon energy sources. MetOx's new manufacturing facility in Houston, Texas is slated to come online by the end of 2023 and will produce over 1,000 km of Xeus™ HTS per year.