BILLERICA, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--PolyJoule, Inc., a pioneer in conductive polymer batteries, today announced the appointment of Dr. Bart Riley as Chief Strategy Officer and Bud Collins as an advisor to the company. Both individuals bring decades of experience building and scaling successful energy storage businesses.
“PolyJoule's third-generation chemistry has hit a commercial inflection point, and the order book now outruns what we can build,” said Eli Paster, co-founder and CEO of PolyJoule. “Executives of Bart and Bud's caliber joining at this stage speak volumes about the chemistry and product readiness as the company positions itself to scale up smart and fast.”
PolyJoule batteries contain patented conductive polymer technology that eliminates thermal runaway risk, is non-toxic, recyclable, and free of rare-earth metals. Their energy storage systems can be installed anywhere, indoors or outdoors, for unmatched safety and peace of mind.
Riley, co-founder and former CTO of A123 Systems, has spent 25 years guiding battery technologies from breakthrough to commercialization. He has held executive, advisory, and investment roles with over twenty battery technology companies ranging from pre-commercial to publicly traded companies and every stage in between.
“Over my career, I've seen a lot of battery companies come and go, and the pattern is almost always the same,” said Riley: “Great concepts undermined by solutions that couldn't scale, supply chains that couldn't deliver, great science that never left the laboratory, manufacturing that couldn't hit volume, and products that didn’t have a true commercial angle.”
Riley continued, “PolyJoule’s nimble approach to scaling its chemistry, relying on domestic and abundant feedstocks, and leveraging manufacturing partners checks the right boxes. The fact that they have systems operating in the field for over five years puts them on another level in the battery sector. That combination is exceedingly rare, and it's why I wanted to be part of what comes next.”
Collins, who has formerly served as President of A123 Energy Solutions, CEO of NEC Energy Solutions, and CEO of AESI, has spent his career designing and deploying large-scale battery systems across grid, commercial, and critical power applications.
He brings a deep, firsthand understanding of how energy storage systems are designed, built, and deployed, along with an industry-recognized role as a pre-eminent investigator for Li-ion energy storage system failure and fire analysis.
“Battery systems are designed around two primary requirements: performance and fire-avoidance,” Collins said. “The industry has learned how to build integrated systems that mitigate fire risk by adding complexity and cost. Managing fire risk is not the same as removing it. PolyJoule’s technology has removed it, dramatically simplifying design and deployment, which is opening new market opportunities.”
Riley and Collins join PolyJoule as the company scales its self-extinguishing chemistry and expands into commercial, industrial, and residential markets where safety is a requirement, not a feature.
“There is no substitute for experience,” said Paster, “Bart and Bud have lived every chapter of the modern energy storage story, and we are honored to bring them to the leadership table.”
About PolyJoule: PolyJoule is a Boston-based, MIT spinoff pioneering conductive polymer battery technology built from non-metallic, rare-earth-free, domestic supply chains. The company develops ultra-safe, sustainable, long-life energy storage systems. PolyJoule’s polymer battery systems are designed and produced in the U.S. For more information, visit www.polyjoule.com and follow PolyJoule on LinkedIn.
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