The Case for Organic Flow Batteries: What CMBlu’s Leaders Say About Scaling Safe, Flexible Storage
Why utilities, automakers, and investors are paying attention to a nature-inspired chemistry with industrial legs
When Mercedes-Benz Turns to Flow Batteries
In 2023, Mercedes-Benz made headlines by selecting CMBlu Energy’s Organic SolidFlow™ battery to manage peak loads at one of its major German factories. For many in the storage space, it was a wake-up call: long-duration energy storage (LDES) isn’t just theoretical — it’s already earning commercial orders from global players.
That deal is just one of several CMBlu has in motion. In the U.S., it’s running pilots with Salt River Project (SRP) in Arizona and WEC Energy Group in Wisconsin. These aren’t science projects — they’re real deployments for customers with growing demands for clean, reliable, and dispatchable power.
Giovanni Damato , President of CMBlu Energy Inc., and Constantin Eis , the company’s new global CEO, joined the Beyond Lithium podcast during RE+ in Anaheim to explain why organic flow batteries are gaining traction — and how their Organic SolidFlow™ chemistry may help drive the levelized cost of storage (LCOS) below 1 cent per kilowatt-hour by 2035.
Here are 5 takeaways from the episode that storage developers, utilities, and investors can use to rethink what’s next after lithium.
1. Nature doesn’t use metals to store energy — so why should we?
CMBlu’s founding idea came from a simple question posed by founder Peter Geigle, a medical doctor by training: “Why doesn’t nature use metal to store energy?”
Instead, evolution favors organic molecules — carbon-based compounds that store energy safely, flexibly, and repeatedly. “Green plants already do day/night cycling. That’s effectively solar generation and energy storage,” Damato said. “We’re just catching up.”
Inspired by that, CMBlu developed an organic flow battery that stores energy using both liquid and solid-state organic materials in a flow architecture. The result: top-tier energy density compared to other flow batteries, modular scalability, and a chemistry that’s inherently non-flammable and recyclable.
2. Organic SolidFlow™ combines flow battery flexibility with solid-state density
The company’s signature product — the Organic SolidFlow™ battery — marries two distinct architectures: the decoupled, scalable nature of flow batteries and the high energy density of solid-state storage.
“In our system, the solids stay in the tank. The electrolyte shuttles charge between the storage depot and the cell stack,” Damato explained. “This lets us achieve higher energy density while keeping the safety and modularity of flow systems.”
And unlike lithium-ion, which inherently couples power and energy, SolidFlow allows developers to size each independently — a critical feature for utility-scale systems that must balance long discharge durations with site constraints.
3. Forget gigafactories — think local, flexible, and secure supply chains
One of CMBlu’s biggest differentiators isn’t chemistry — it’s supply chain. Because its active materials are carbon-based small molecules and polymers, the company can tap into existing industrial production lines and even co-locate manufacturing near customers.
“The beauty of using organic molecules is that they’re everywhere. We can source and manufacture locally, without relying on rare or conflict materials,” Eis said. That’s a major strategic edge in a volatile geopolitical environment.
Plus, the components — from the electrolyte to the fuel pumps — are already mass-produced for other industries, like automotive. “We use fuel pumps that already have decades of data behind them,” Damato added. “That makes operations, maintenance, and cost modeling a lot easier”.
4. Long-duration storage isn’t a nice-to-have — it’s what utilities already need
According to Damato, the market isn’t just warming up to LDES — it’s already demanding it. “When I started in 2005, we were talking about 15-minute flywheels,” he said. “Now utilities are asking for 8–10 hour batteries, because they know that’s what they’ll need to hit carbon neutrality by 2035.”
Utilities in states like California and Arizona are already planning for tens of gigawatt-hours of storage. “SRP in Phoenix is looking at 8 GW of storage by itself — that’s equal to all of California’s current installed base,” Damato noted.
As the average installed duration has crept up to nearly 4 hours (per recent Wood Mackenzie reports), systems capable of 8–10 hours will be critical for load shifting, peak shaving, and enabling higher solar penetration.
5. The long game: 1¢/kWh and a global circular carbon economy
CMBlu’s internal target is bold: get to a levelized cost of storage (LCOS) below $0.01/kWh by 2035. That’s one-fifth of the DOE’s current LDES goal — but Damato and Eis think it’s achievable.
“We’re using materials that are non-toxic, don’t require exotic processing, and can be reused over thousands of cycles,” Damato said. “Plus, the balance of plants — concrete, copper, pumps — is all straightforward and scalable.”
Because the technology uses materials found in existing industrial sectors (like plastics and pharmaceuticals), both production and end-of-life pathways already exist. “It’s not a single-use plastic. It’s a long-lived asset that fits into a circular carbon economy,” Eis emphasized.
Catch the full episode at the link below:
https://open.spotify.com/episode/0P7ejvGE2UnwBRDRJ6Q2Fc?si=5e4848dcf79249b6
