By Taylor Flanary | August 2023
Arpit Dwivedi knew from a young age that he was up for the challenge of running his own business. In fact, as an undergraduate student he built his first startup, which was making millions in revenue by the time he left.
“I think deep inside it comes from doing what you enjoy while pushing the boundary of what’s considered achievable,” he said. “Do something that most people would feel is too hard to do, even if you fail- that’s how step changes are made.”
Arpit knew it was time for a change when he developed a passion for clean energy solutions. So, he left his first startup and launched Cache Energy, focused on a technology he describes as “ultra long-duration storage in a solid fuel.”
Cache is less than a year old, but has already grown exponentially. This rechargeable way of storing energy is designed to be highly transportable and affordable, Arpit said, which has helped them become one of the fastest moving energy companies in the storage space. In fact, when he launched his company, he spent quite a bit of his time convincing people that the science behind their product was not too ambitious.
“People thought it was too much of a utopian idea that you could replace coal and do it in a cleaner fashion and also be cheaper,” said Dwivedi.
Once Cache Energy found their initial investors, they were able to show over six to seven months that the material could behave as a battery, charging and discharging for thousands of cycles.
On top of that, Cache Energy is the first company to offer the same level of transportability as fossil fuels while delivering it in a cleaner and cheaper fashion, he said.
“One of the positives about fossil fuels is that you could extract it at any place, but then you could distribute it to anywhere else in the world” he said. “I don’t have to live near a coal mine to have electricity in my house.”
Arpit recognizes the importance of accessible, affordable, clean energy and is excited for the ways that Cache Energy can solve energy problems for remote areas in the world. Dwivedi wants people all over the world to, “feel what it feels like to be warm on a cold day or have hot water, or even have water 30 ft from where you’re sitting.”
These rechargeable pellets also don’t require any new infrastructure to utilize their energy, he said, saving the jobs of thousands of power plant workers.
“A lot of communities have been dependent on fossil fuels for decades,” Dwivedi adds, “people cannot be divorced right away so saving jobs is very crucial.”
Dwivedi’s next steps include finding partners to aid them in launching their pilot project and recruiting new team members. Joining Joules’ Cohort 12 seemed to Dwivedi like, “the right thing we needed at the right time.”
Anyone interested in helping Cache’s mission to make clean energy accessible and affordable everywhere should contact them here.