Somerville’s Form Energy received the majority of a $6 million tax incentive for job creation granted to five climate tech innovation companies in Cambridge and Somerville.
Form, which produces high-capacity batteries used for storing renewable energy at utility scale, earlier this year was identified as the recipient of a billion-dollar contract for energy storage from Google, and recently received $750 million in venture capital to help expand its battery factory in West Virginia.
Form received $5.6 million in credits from the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center, which gave $27.2 million in tax incentives to 18 companies across the state to create more jobs. In addition to Form, four other local companies received grants. Pascal Technologies and Mantel Capture in Cambridge as well as Eden Geopower in Somerville received $100,000 in tax credits. Somerville’s Vertical Semiconductor received $120,000.
Some recipients also receive incentives for capital investment, specifically for leasing or buying facility space.
MassCEC selected companies with a clear business plan, evidence of continued revenue gains, and were creating technology that would hinder the impacts of climate change and emissions throughout the world,” said Mike Condon, the director of economic growth and partnership at MassCEC, in an interview with Cambridge Day.
Condon said MassCEC’s grant program, modeled after the Mass Life Sciences Center’s program, is a way to help grow and retain climatetech companies in Massachusetts.
Form Energy
The Somerville-based company Form Energy produces iron-air batteries designed to deliver electricity for 100 hours to create a reliable electric grid year-round.
The $5.6 million incentive allowed Form to hire new employees, bringing the company’s employee count to 240.
Form was originally developed at MIT before it was further developed at the Somerville climatetech incubator Greentown Labs as well as the Cambridge incubator The Engine.
Eden Geopower
Eden Geopower, located in Somerville, developed a “first-of-its-kind” electric reservoir stimulation technology, which uses electric pulse drilling to increase the recovery of natural resources in the ground.
Overall, the technology aims “to extract natural resources out of the ground, whether its critical minerals, geothermal energy, geologic hydrogen,” said Desi Hambrock, Eden Geopower Chief of Staff.
The $100,000 tax incentive allows Eden Geopower “to execute our goals more quickly” by hiring more employees, Hambrock said. Overall, Eden’s goal is to develop and generate “energy and resources in a way that is very low cost, but at the same time, has huge environmental impact,” as is the goal of all climatetech companies, Hambrock said.
Mantel Capture
Mantel Capture in Cambridge created a carbon capture system that uses molten borate salt to capture greenhouse gases in industrial boilers, kilns, and furnaces before they enter the atmosphere.
The MassCEC incentive will be “super helpful” as Eden builds a bigger team at its facility at 750 Main Street in Cambridge, said Danielle Rapson, the chief operating officer of Mantel Capture. Particularly, tax incentives “really help” Eden give their interns full-time jobs, she said.
Vertical Semiconductor
Located in Somerville, Vertical Semiconductor, which was originally started at MIT, is developing a semiconductor power chip that reduces energy losses in data centers.
The power chip, made with vertical gallium nitride, essentially makes power systems “much more efficient,” said Cynthia Liao, the co-founder and CEO of Vertical Semiconductor.
The power chip reduces energy losses inside a data center by about 80 percent, Liao said. She said right now, 20 to 30 percent of energy in a data center never makes it to the center’s computers.
Liao is “super excited” about the $120,000 tax incentive because it allows Vertical Semiconductor to create new semiconductor engineering and research and development positions and offer stipends for employees who relocate to Somerville.
Pascal Technologies
Pascal Technologies is developing efficient, non-polluting refrigerants that allow HVAC systems to put less strain on the electric grid.
More efficient refrigerants are needed because “as the world needs more and more cooling, the amount of super-polluting fluorinated gas refrigerants used in these systems will increase while the extra energy usage will strain our electrical grid,” said Adam Slavney, co-founder and CEO of Pascal Technologies.
Tax incentives generally allow the Cambridge-based company to “offset the high cost-of-living,” Slavney said. The MassCEC incentive specifically allowed Pascal to hire an additional employee, bringing its total employees to 15.
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