MGA Thermal

The challenge

Storing renewable energy for industrial heat—from a scientific breakthrough to an industry problem worth solving

MGA Thermal’s story began with research at the University of Newcastle. Professor Erich Kisi, Dr Heber Sugo and their team were investigating materials that could operate at very high temperatures and convert heat into electricity.

During this work, they identified a broader opportunity: using the properties of metal alloys to store thermal energy.

Renewable electricity can be generated when the sun shines and the wind blows. Many industrial sites, however, need reliable heat at times when renewable generation may be unavailable.

Industrial heat is used in processes including manufacturing, minerals processing, food production and chemical production. For these industries, replacing fossil fuels is not simply a matter of securing more renewable electricity. It also requires technologies that can deliver heat at the right temperature, for the required duration and when the process needs it.

The team began exploring a different question: How do you store renewable energy at scale and make it available as industrial heat when industry needs it?

The resulting technology uses metal alloy particles embedded within a solid graphite matrix. Renewable electricity is used to heat the storage medium. When the energy is needed, the stored thermal energy can be released as high-temperature heat and used to produce steam for industrial applications.

The metal alloy stores additional energy as it changes between solid and liquid states. This form of storage is known as latent heat.

This will help industrial sites reduce their reliance on fossil fuels for process heat. Its practical value, however, would depend on factors including system performance, cost, integration with industrial operations, and the availability of renewable electricity.

For the research team, these were questions that science alone could not answer:

• Who would use this technology?
• What industrial problem would it solve?
• Which applications offered the strongest opportunity?
• Could the research become the foundation of a sustainable business?

Our response

Learning to see the research commercially

Co-founders Alex Post and Erich Kisi and their colleagues participated in both ON Prime and ON Accelerate, working with mentors, facilitators and industry experts to explore the commercial opportunity for their technology.

ON helped the team test assumptions, engage with potential customers, and examine where the technology could create the greatest value.

For researchers with deep technical expertise, this required a shift in perspective. The question was no longer only whether the material worked.

The team also needed to understand the customer problem, the application, the business model, and the capabilities required to develop a company.

As Erich explained: “ON Prime gave us the confidence that we had a product the market wanted, and it helped us refine our problem-solution fit.”

Customer and industry conversations helped the team consider the difference between a promising technology and a product that could be integrated into industrial operations.

Through ON, the team strengthened its capabilities in customer engagement, partnerships, pitching, and commercial strategy. It also gained experience communicating the value of the technology to people who did not share the team’s technical background.

The program helped the researchers make more informed decisions about how to pursue the opportunity and gave them greater confidence to lead the commercialisation process themselves.

“ON Accelerate helped us build the skills and confidence to choose the right business model, and to adapt over time as our startup scaled.”

ON was an early part of a much longer journey.

The progress that followed also required continued research and development, system engineering, investment, manufacturing capability, partnerships and sustained work by the MGA Thermal team.

The results

Progressing from demonstration towards deployment

Following more than a decade of research and development, MGA Thermal commissioned its 5 MWh Demonstration Plant at Tomago in April 2025. The facility marked a major step in the company’s journey, proving that renewable energy can be stored and dispatched as high‑grade process heat, reliably, affordably and at scale.

Building on more than 12 months of successful Demonstration Plant operation, MGA Thermal commenced a Front-End Engineering & Design (FEED) study in May 2026 for a 200 MWh ETES system proposed for Tronox’s titanium dioxide refinery in Kwinana, Western Australia.

The project, one of Australia’s largest industrial‑scale thermal storage initiatives, is targeting commercial operation in 2028 and will deliver approximately 20 tonnes per hour of renewable steam to Tronox’s Kwinana facility under a Heat-as-a-Service agreement. The initial deployment is expected to avoid 38,000 tonnes of CO₂ emissions annually, with the potential to fully eliminate fossil‑fuel use if deployed at scale.

MGA Thermal has also attracted more than $54 million in private investment and government support to advance its technology and scale its operations.

From research to industrial application

MGA Thermal’s journey highlights that a scientific breakthrough is only the beginning of deep-tech commercialisation.

Moving from a material discovered in a university laboratory to operating commercially took years of materials research, engineering, testing, manufacturing development and commercial validation.

For the MGA Thermal team, ON provided an early opportunity to explore whether the technology addressed a problem that industry needed to solve. It helped the researchers engage with potential customers, refine their understanding of the market and build the confidence and skills to pursue a company.

Turning that early opportunity into a commercial business required sustained support and collaboration across industry, government, research and investment. The MGA Thermal team worked alongside investors including Main Sequence and IP Group, government funders principally the Australian Renewable Energy Agency, research collaborators and industrial partners to advance the technology from a research opportunity towards commercialisation.