CHENNAI: As India races toward its target of 500 gigawatts of renewable capacity by 2030, the country faces a problem shared by every solar-heavy grid: panels only generate power while the sun is up, but electricity is needed around the clock. Bridging that gap requires storage technologies that can absorb excess daytime power and release it reliably after dark. And a Chennai-based deep tech start-up has come out with an alternative --- Iron-air batteries.
The chemistry works by rusting metal to release electricity, then reversing the reaction to recharge — a process that relies on iron, one of the most abundant materials on Earth, rather than scarcer inputs like lithium and cobalt. That makes it potentially far cheaper than lithium-ion for large-scale storage. But the technology has historically been built for a different job: global developers such as the US's Form Energy and Europe's Ore Energy have designed systems around storage durations of up to 100 hours, positioning iron-air as a multi-day or seasonal backstop rather than a daily workhorse.
That mismatch is where Chennai-based Meine Electric says it has found an opening. The startup has developed an iron-air system that charges in six hours and discharges over 18 — compressing the technology into a daily cycle that lines up with how solar grids actually operate, according to Priyansh Mohan, Co-Founder & CEO, Meine Electric. The claim has been independently tested by CES Battery Laboratory, part of US-based Customized Energy Solutions, the parent company of the India Energy Storage Alliance (IESA). CES ran two cells through 180 hours of repeated charge-discharge cycles and confirmed they held up reliably. The tests recorded a round-trip efficiency of roughly 55 per cent, says Priyansh.
The CES report accessed by The New Indian Express states that, "Each cell was subjected to a rigorous 24-hour charge-discharge protocol comprising a rapid 6 hours of charging followed by 18 hours of discharging per cycle. The cells yielded 7 complete cycles over the test period (May 23 to June 01, 2026)."
Former Central Electricity Authority (CEA) Chairperson and ex-Member (Planning) Pankaj Batra said the development of iron-air batteries could prove "revolutionary" for grid-scale energy storage, offering a significantly cheaper alternative to lithium-ion and vanadium-based batteries. He said the limited availability of lithium and vanadium makes them expensive, whereas iron is abundant and far less costly, potentially lowering the cost of energy storage. Batra said a pilot project using the technology would be implemented through a public sector undertaking. He added that Merine Electric, the company developing the technology, has secured four patents and has filed applications for seven more, underscoring its focus on indigenous innovation.
Priyansh estimates its system could store power at under $0.05 per kilowatt-hour, a modelled figure rather than one drawn from an operating deployment. The company, founded in 2023, has raised $750,000 in early funding, in a pre-seed round led by Antler India, Rebalance, and Venture Catalysts, with participation from gradCapital, Anna University’s AIC-AU Incubation Foundation, and key angels like industry veteran Alexander Hogeveen Rutter. Alongside this equity raise, the company is backed by institutions including DST and DPIIT with over $100,000 in non-dilutive grants
Priyansh says the start-up has lined up two pilot orders with power producers, with a first grid-connected deployment expected in early 2027. The company currently employs 18 people in their 5500 square feet Chennai New Product Development Office. They are scaling to their first 45000sqft production unit soon, planning to expand to a 100 people team by next year-end.
Meine Electric won the NextGen Innovator Award at the 5th National Startup Awards, which were presented by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on National Startup Day.
