What Happened?
Mukilteo, WA-based UniEnergy-Technologies Appointed Z. Gary Yang as Chief Executive Officer
About the Company
UniEnergy Technologies produces large-scale energy storage systems for utility, micro-grid, commercial and industrial, and other applications. The core technology is an advanced vanadium flow battery, with breakthrough electrolyte, containerized design, mature and powerful stacks, and state-of-the-art controls. The Uni.SystemTM is safe, operationally flexible, reliable, long-life, and cost-effective. Based in the Seattle area, UET operates a 67,000 square foot engineering & manufacturing facility scaling up to produce 100 megawatts annually. Currently about 35 people, UET plans to grow to about 100 people by mid-2015.
About the Person
Dr. Yang is a scientist, an engineer, and an entrepreneur in energy conversion and storage. He co-founded UniEnergy Technologies (UET) in 2012, and has since served as CEO and President of the company. UET’s mission is to provide world-class bulk energy storage solutions to the transforming electrical grid and utility, through innovation, partnerships and quality. Safe, reliable and economic energy storage has become indispensable to the power industry that is increasingly demanded of less pollution, better efficiency, greater resiliency and more flexibility to customers. UET is meeting these needs by engineering and producing the Uni.System™, a new generation vanadium redox flow battery (VFRB) system with high performance electrolytes and stacks, highly integrated containerized system design, state-of-the-art power electronics and control, and value-added services. Since its inception, UET has successfully engineered and demonstrated MW scale systems and is currently installing systems in the US and internationally. Previously, Dr. Yang was a Lab Fellow, the highest science and technology rank, at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) of the US Department of Energy (DOE). He played a pivotal role in establishing the Grid Energy Storage Program at the lab and led the program in R&D of varied storage technologies, including new generation VFRB, planar Na-halide batteries, novel Li-ion batteries and new materials/chemistries, along with grid application studies. Under Dr. Yang’s leadership, the PNNL’s multi-disciplinary team successfully attracted over $20 million of funding and made several breakthroughs in battery technologies including planar Na-halide batteries, nanostructured Li-ion batteries and a new generation of VRFB that was later licensed by UET. Earlier, Dr. Yang was a Senior Scientist and later a Chief Scientist leading efforts in RD&D of planar solid oxide fuel cells (SOFC) and development of nanostructured hydrogen storage materials. He joined PNNL in early 2001, after 5 years of experience as a materials engineer in the auto-parts industry, and extensive education and training in materials science, engineering and electrochemistry, at Jilin University (formerly Jilin University of Technology), the University of Connecticut, and Carnegie Mellon University. Dr. Yang was elected a Fellow of ASM International in recognition of “his outstanding contribution to advanced materials and electrochemical energy conversion and storage ….” He has published over 200 research articles, 13 book chapters and editorials, organized over 20 symposiums/conferences, and delivered numerous invited speeches around the world. He is an inventor of over 50 US and foreign patents (including pending). His efforts have won him multiple awards that include twice the Federal Laboratory Consortium’s (FLC) Excellence in Technology Transfer Award (on SOFC and VFRB, respectively), one of the most prestigious US government awards on technology development and commercialization.
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