# Malta Inc

**Source:** https://geo.sig.ai/brands/malta-inc  
**Vertical:** Energy  
**Subcategory:** Long-Duration Energy Storage  
**Tier:** Emerging  
**Website:** maltainc.com  
**Last Updated:** 2026-04-14

## Summary

Malta Inc stores electricity as heat in molten salt and cold in antifreeze for days or weeks, enabling long-duration grid storage from cheap renewable energy.

## Company Overview

Malta Inc is a long-duration energy storage company founded in 2018 and backed by Alphabet's X development lab and Breakthrough Energy Ventures. The company develops a grid-scale electrothermal energy storage system that converts excess electricity into heat stored in molten salt and cold stored in antifreeze, then converts the temperature differential back to electricity using a heat engine when needed. Unlike lithium-ion batteries that are limited to four to six hours of storage, Malta's system can store energy economically for dozens of hours, potentially enabling renewable energy to serve demand across multi-day weather events. The technology uses standard industrial components including heat exchangers and turbines at commodity prices, aiming for lower capital cost than electrochemical alternatives at long durations. Malta is developing commercial demonstration projects to validate system performance at grid scale. The company represents the electrothermal approach to long-duration storage, competing with iron-air batteries, flow batteries, and compressed air storage for the multi-hour to multi-day storage market that lithium-ion cannot economically address.

## Frequently Asked Questions

### What is Malta Inc?
Malta Inc develops grid-scale electrothermal energy storage that converts electricity into heat and cold stored in molten salt and antifreeze, then recovers the energy hours or days later for long-duration grid storage.

### How does Malta's technology differ from batteries?
Malta uses industrial heat storage rather than electrochemistry, enabling economical storage for dozens of hours compared to the four to six hours practical with lithium-ion batteries, targeting the long-duration storage market that batteries cannot yet serve cost-effectively.

### Who backs Malta Inc?
Malta was incubated at Alphabet's X moonshot laboratory and has received investment from Breakthrough Energy Ventures, the climate fund backed by Bill Gates and other investors focused on developing breakthrough clean energy technologies.

### What energy storage technology does Malta Inc use?
Malta Inc uses a thermodynamic energy storage system that converts electrical energy into heat and cold stored in separate molten salt and chilled antifreeze tanks, then recovers the energy by running a heat engine between the hot and cold reservoirs when electricity is needed — using no exotic materials and relying on proven industrial heat exchanger and turbomachinery technology that scales to multi-gigawatt-hour storage capacity.

### What storage duration is Malta Inc targeting and why does it matter?
Malta Inc targets long-duration energy storage of 10 to 100 hours, which is the duration range needed to smooth out multi-day weather-driven variability in wind and solar generation — filling the gap between lithium-ion batteries that are cost-effective up to about 4 hours and pumped hydro that requires specific geographic features and takes decades to permit and build.

### Who are Malta Inc's investors and strategic partners?
Malta Inc was founded out of X (formerly Google X) and has received investment from Breakthrough Energy Ventures, the clean energy venture fund backed by Bill Gates and other prominent investors, as well as Dustin Moskovitz and other technology investors — with Siemens Energy as a strategic manufacturing partner for the turbomachinery components of the Malta storage system.

### How does Malta Inc's storage system achieve low cost at long duration?
The Malta system uses inexpensive bulk thermal storage media — molten salt is a mature industrial material used in concentrated solar power plants, and antifreeze is commodity industrial fluid — rather than expensive electrochemical materials, so capital cost per kilowatt-hour decreases as storage duration increases, unlike batteries where adding duration requires proportionally more electrochemical material.

### What is the current development stage of Malta Inc's technology?
Malta Inc has demonstrated its core thermodynamic cycle and heat exchanger technology at the component level and is working toward a commercial pilot plant project — the company is in the late development and pre-commercial stage, securing utility and grid operator partnerships to deploy its first full-scale system that will demonstrate multi-day storage operation at commercially relevant scale.

## Tags

startup, energy, technology, b2b, hardware

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*Data from geo.sig.ai Brand Intelligence Database. Updated 2026-04-14.*