Bill Gates-backed battery start-up returns from bankruptcy
Pittsburgh-based company Aquion Energy, which counted Bill Gates among its original backers, has emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy and resumed manufacturing of its energy storage batteries. The firm, which filed for bankruptcy in March, has developed a battery using a novel electrolyte which has a chemical composition similar to salt water. It has been described as the "safest, cleanest, and lowest cost" battery technology in the world.
Another UK company installing the batteries touted its advantages on Energy-Storage.News by saying it “costs the same” as lithium-ion, but can be cycled twice as many times as the majority of those more commonly available batteries.

Aquion announced just before last weekend that operations had resumed at the company and that it had emerged from Chapter 11 status, the bankruptcy protection law under which it had been compelled to file agreements.

With deployments into off-grid markets and “strategic” projects in territories like Japan starting to appear, the company had been tipped for big things before the Chapter 11. Founder and CTO Jay Whitacre was even awarded half-a-million dollars that came with the Lemelson-MIT Prize, which honours technological innovations that can “improve the world” from mid-career inventors for the AHI battery.

Some commentators argued that Aquion had been unprepared for a market in which lithium-ion prices had fallen even more rapidly than forecast and was simply unable to compete, despite the technological strong points of its devices and systems.

New owner is unnamed US-majority investor