e-Zinc

e-Zinc Inc. is a Canadian clean-technology company based in Toronto, Ontario, that designs and manufactures breakthrough long-duration energy storage (LDES) systems built on a zinc-based, water-electrolyte battery chemistry, helping accelerate the transition to a clean, zero-carbon energy future by solving the intermittency challenge of wind and solar power.

At the core of e-Zinc's innovation is the decoupling of power from energy: unlike lithium-ion batteries, constrained to roughly two to four hours of discharge, e-Zinc's systems scale storage duration independently of power electronics, delivering 10 to 100+ hours of energy, removing the need for carbon-heavy diesel or gas backup, even in the harshest, most remote environments.

The choice of zinc as the energy carrier represents a paradigm shift for the industry: zinc is a globally abundant, low-cost, recyclable commodity metal, reducing exposure to the critical-minerals constraints facing lithium-ion technology. Combined with the breakthrough cell design leveraging commodity materials, this makes the solution cost-effective, fire-safe (its non-flammable electrolyte eliminates thermal-runaway risk), modular, and flexible to offer customs energy durations within 10-100 hours.

e-Zinc serves three core markets: grid resilience and backup power; remote and off-grid operations, including mining, telecom, and defence; and multi-day renewables integration. The company operates a pilot-scale manufacturing facility in Canada, has offices in the United States, and is advancing pilot deployments with the California Energy Commission and Toyota Tsusho Canada. Led by CEO James Larsen, e-Zinc has raised more than USD $75 million from investors including Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Toyota Ventures, Evok Innovations, Eni Next, Export Development Canada, BDC Capital, Anzu Partners, and Graphite Ventures, and has been named to the Global Cleantech 100 and recognized as a World Economic Forum Technology Pioneer.

For Australian mine sites, most of which run off-grid microgrids powered by diesel or gas turbines, e-Zinc's LDES offers a path to displace that fossil generation rather than simply supplement it. Because e-Zinc's systems discharge at full power for 10 to 100+ hours, they can carry a mine through extended low-wind, low-solar periods, not just the few hours a lithium-ion system can bridge, enabling mines to achieve 100% renewable energy usage. This also addresses the two costs gas exposes remote mines to: fuel price volatility and logistics, and the emissions it carries against decarbonization targets. e-Zinc's technology has a wide operating temperature range and can operate in the harsh conditions of remote mines across Australia.