Ho Viet Hai, co-founder of Alternō sand batteries: Finding green energy solutions for agricultural processing
Alternō is the world's first sand battery start-up focused on solving the problem of agricultural product drying for the agricultural industry.
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| The three founders of Alternō (from right to left: Ho Viet Hai, Kent Nguyen and Nguyen Quoc Nam). |
Drying agricultural products from the heat of sand
Located in the hot land of Ninh Hung commune (Ninh Hoa town, Khanh Hoa province), where the national power line has not yet reached, Ecovi Farm agricultural farm has chosen a completely new solution to serve the drying of mangoes and medicinal herbs: using heat from sand batteries.
With an investment of less than 500 million VND, Ecovi Farm has an Alternō sand battery system, helping the farm convert solar power into heat stored in the battery. This heat source can be stored for up to months, ensuring that the agricultural product drying process takes place continuously, is not affected by the weather like when drying in the sun, and does not cause environmental pollution like drying with coal or firewood.
With the current drying capacity, Ms. Nguyen Thi Le Na, founder of Ecovi Farm, estimates that if they use grid electricity, they will have to spend 5 - 6 million VND per month, while investing in a sand battery system will pay for itself after 5 years.
Ecovi Farm is one of the first customers of Alternō, a sand battery start-up based in Ho Chi Minh City.
Talking to Investment Newspaper reporter, Mr. Ho Viet Hai, co-founder of Alternō said that the heat retention ability of sand has been applied by humans for thousands of years.
In terms of structure, the Alternō sand battery is an insulated steel tank filled with fine sand inside. The sand core consists of steel bars connected to an external power source to heat the sand to 600 degrees Celsius, turning the sand into a "heat storage". In addition, the sand battery is also designed with a smart chip placed in the battery core, along with a series of sensors between the sand layers, thereby sending parameters about the battery's operation to the management application of
start-ups and users. This is an exclusive technology, which has been registered by start-ups for intellectual property in Vietnam and the US.
Similar to other sand battery systems around the world , Ho Viet Hai said, Alternō sand batteries get energy from on-site renewable sources such as wind power, rooftop solar power, and even grid power. During the summer, businesses can take advantage of lower grid electricity prices at night to fully charge the sand batteries.
Carbon Reduction Tools
As a fate, Ho Viet Hai shared, all three founders of Alternō sand batteries were born in 1985 and are interested in environmental issues.
After Covid-19 ended, Ho Viet Hai spent more than a year living in the mountains, completely self-sufficient in electricity and water. This is when he realized that storing solar power in lithium batteries was not effective. Lithium batteries can provide electricity for motorbikes and electric cars, but if used for activities that require heat energy such as boiling water and cooking, it is not suitable.
Sharing his concerns about lithium batteries with his friend Kent Nguyen, Hai learned that the problem could be solved with sand batteries. During the Covid-19 period, Kent Nguyen had been researching sustainable energy solutions, so he came across sand batteries. Instead of storing electricity like lithium batteries, sand batteries will store heat energy at a lower cost, with a huge range of applications.
In November 2022, when Ho Chi Minh City was facing a shortage of gasoline, Ho Viet Hai and Kent Nguyen decided to work together to realize the idea of sand batteries. They brought the idea to participate in the Incubation Program for startups of Antler Investment Fund. Here, they met Nguyen Quoc Nam and invited him to participate.
Of the three, Kent Nguyen has had 10 startups in the past 20 years in the software industry. Hai and Nam each have multiple startups in the technology industry. Therefore, they quickly outlined their development direction as the renewable energy market, aiming to reduce carbon emissions. The project successfully called for a seed round worth 110,000 USD from Antler Fund after only 10 weeks of participating in the incubation program.
Throughout 2023, the founders put a lot of effort into implementing the Project. Ho Viet Hai said that under normal conditions, the machines all operate stably, but when they reach 600-1,000 degrees Celsius, many parts start to fail. Therefore, Alternō had to conduct hundreds of experiments to adjust the product to suit reality.
Notably, not only developing hardware, Alternō also integrates into the system a software written by themselves, capable of calculating the amount of carbon that the factory reduces emissions into the environment, from which it can issue corresponding carbon credits. Currently, Vietnam has not implemented a mandatory carbon market. However, with the sand battery system integrated with available calculation software, businesses have enough data to issue carbon credits, thereby increasing revenue.
“Given that European Union countries will soon impose carbon taxes on imported products, our vision not only contributes to reducing carbon emissions in the agricultural sector, but also helps Vietnamese companies increase their competitiveness in the international market with products that meet the world's green standards,” co-founder Ho Viet Hai affirmed.
Currently, Alternō is busy installing sand battery systems for a number of large enterprises in Vietnam. From now until the end of the year, the company will implement more contracts with Japanese and Indonesian enterprises. With the support of its partners, along with a successful capital raising round worth 1.5 million USD in early April 2024, the start-up is increasingly confident in its mission towards sustainable energy solutions.
Source: https://baodautu.vn/ho-viet-hai-dong-sang-lap-pin-cat-altern-tim-giai-phap-nang-luong-xanh-cho-che-bien-nong-san-d214612.html
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