Meet James Clegern | President and CTO of KineticCore Solutions

We had the good fortune of connecting with James Clegern and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi James, can you talk to us a bit about the social impact of your business?
KineticCore Solutions (KCS) was established in 2019 to address the lack of affordable, high-power energy storage desperately needed for commercial, industrial and communities wishing to meet pollution reduction goals through advanced electrification. Electrification has a two-sided challenge for all communities: how much energy (kWh) is used and what power (kW) throughput is required. Most of the current national focus is on storing and moving energy, but little has been done to address peak power demands which drive facility and grid upgrade costs. KCS provides the first cost-effective means to address the “power” portion of the equation. Our 25-year life, non-chemical Kinetic Battery provide solutions to these electrification challenges and their social impacts, both locally and globally:
Lower Access Costs: With access to new power costing over $1,000 per kilowatt in many urban and rural communities, Kinetic Batteries can reduce the cost of providing that peak power up to 80%. This allows all communities affordable participation in advanced facility electrification and EV fast charging with minimal grid infrastructure upgrades.
Grid Resilience: By allowing customers to control their own peak power, local grids see less power fluctuations and become more stable and resilient, reducing the threat of brown-outs when power demand is exceedingly high.
Reduced Pollution: At the utility level, every megawatt of reduced peak power over an operating day becomes fewer megawatt-hours (MWh) of energy that need to be generated by natural gas “peaker” power plants, reducing pollution. At scale, a region with 10,000 Kinetic Batteries in place reduce peak power by two gigawatts and about 20 gigawatt-hour per day, reducing 2.8 megatons of CO2 per year.
Smaller Electrical Bills: At local, commercial sites, 200 kW Kinetic Batteries supported peak power can reduce peak demand portion of electric bills up to $84k/year, quickly paying for themselves within 24-months in most applications. Kinetic Batteries also qualify under most utility Demand Reduction programs, helping utilities and customers reduce electrical bills further.
Improved Safety: Being non-chemical, Kinetic Batteries are recyclable, contain no hazardous materials, and do not compete for mined rare minerals like lithium, cobalt, vanadium and nickel that are needed for other mobile or longer-duration battery systems. Kinetic Batteries do not suffer from freezing, fire or explosive failures like some of their chemical battery counterparts, allowing stationary external placement next to their supported facility.
Improved EV Charging: In a specific example, Kinetic Battery boosted EV fast chargers require up to 80% less grid power and open up wider deployment options, allowing all communities (urban, suburban and rural) to expand EV charging access and encourage EV adoption. More EVs reduce operational costs (50% less maintenance and energy per NRDC.org, 2024), reduces local pollution generation (less fuel burning vehicles) and improves respiratory health with cleaner air.

Alright, so for those in our community who might not be familiar with your business, can you tell us more?
KineticCore Solutions (KCS) is developing and fielding an evolutionary leap forward in high-power and non-chemical electrical energy storage, creating a deployable, cost-competitive peak power support capability for the 5.9M commercial, industrial, and EV fast charger customers needing high-power from an already strained grid. Traditional chemical and flywheel energy storage have been available for years to support peak loads, but rarely used due to their high costs. The KCS “Kinetic Battery” is up to 50% lower cost than Li-ion battery systems for high-power applications, has a 25+ year operational life with no battery replacements, and does not suffer from freezing temperatures, fire or explosive failures. With initial production capability planned for Northern Colorado, our centralized location would allow B2B and distributor shipping across the USA for our $130M entry target market supporting Boosted Fast Chargers for Electric Vehicles (EV).

The most exciting aspect is that each Kinetic Battery paired with a high-power EV Fast Charger, can reduce 200 kW of peak power draw from the grid, saving owners up to $200k in grid upgrade costs and $84,000/year in operational peak power charges on their electrical bills. This proposed “pairing” helps accelerate deployment of EV chargers to locations with limited grid power access, creating equitable access to EV charging for all communities.

Starting in 2019, KCS has taken a paper design through virtual prototyping, lab testing and capability demonstration of a scaled system. All this was completed with a core team, Colorado and federal grants, and a cadre of angel investors who believed in our vision. Now we are ready to scale up to a full system prototype to demonstrate the technology’s viability to commercial partners and potential investors by the end of 2025. The path was not an easy one, with COVID limiting our early operations for almost 12-months, supply chain disruptions causing parts normally made in 2-weeks to take 2-months, and finding adequate manufacturing support to build and test our new, patented flywheel design here in the US. KCS persevered and plans to complete our stateside high-speed test facility here in Northern Colorado to prepare for commercial product release in late 2026.

The world needs advanced electrification to meet commercial, industrial and political pollution reduction goals. This requires significant access to peak power that current grid distribution infrastructure is just not prepared for. KCS has created a peak power booster that is the first cost-effective option to become available, allowing customers to directly control their peak loads while maintaining operational readiness 24/7.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
If I had visitors for a week with no previous plans, I would offer an “exploratory” drive of northern Colorado, starting and ending in Loveland. First day we would explore the various sculpture parks and take a morning hike up through the Devil’s Backbone state park, and end with dinner in the revitalized Loveland downtown. Second day would be traveling down to Denver and visiting the Natural History Museum, lunch on 16th street downtown and an afternoon at the “Wings over the Rockies” Air and Space Museum. Our third day would have us travel down to Colorado Springs to hike in the Garden of the Gods and take the Pike’s Peak tramway up to the top of the fourteener. Our fourth day would be spend traveling up into the mountains through Leadville and to Grand Lake, stopping to enjoy the scenery along the way. Our last day (#5) would be to travel up over the continental divide along the Rocky Mountain National Park trail ridge road, walk around the Alluvial Fan, eat Dinner in Estes Park and finally return to Loveland.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
First, I need to recognize my immediate and extended family who had put-up with my excitement for years about making flywheel energy storage affordable, and then jumping in with time, talent and funding to get the whole project kicked-off.
Second, I need to recognize my crew of angel investors for believing in our vision for accessible high-power electricity and supporting us through our proof of concept demonstrations.
Finally, the teams in the trenches trying to expand electrification in facilities and with EV Fast Charger networks coming forward to validate market need for a cost-effective solution to their peak load challenges.

Website: https://www.kineticcore.com

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-clegern-92295150/

Image Credits
KineticCore Solutions