You may be well acquainted with hybrid cars. But could you picture a cement factory or a glass plant running as a hybrid, drawing their power from both electricity and fossil fuels? That image, surreal as it sounds, might soon become reality. There’s a young company that’s set out to pull heavy industry into the electric age without asking it to leap off a financial cliff. Instead, they offer a middle road: electrify what you can, and only lean on fossil fuels when you must.
Carlos Ceballos, co-founder and CEO of NOC Energy, puts it succinctly: “We hybridize industrial processes.” In conversation, his faith in a flexible transition rings clear. “Companies want to electrify, yes. But they’re not ready to abandon fossil fuels overnight. They want to compare costs, pick what works, hedge their bets.”
NOC’s solution dodges the usual pain points. The company has devised an electric heater that can be grafted onto a factory’s existing fossil fuel system—no need to gut the whole plant from the inside out. Their tech pipes heat exactly where it’s needed: into a glass kiln, or right into the gritty churn of cement production. If the electricity market gets wild and prices skyrocket, the plant operator simply flicks a switch, and NOC’s add-on steps aside. Gas or coal takes over, keeping production ticking along.
What really sets NOC apart is the ferocity of its heat. The company can crank the temperature up to a staggering 1,200 degrees Celsius already, with 1,500˚C on the horizon. For ages, only fossil fuels or, in rare cases, green hydrogen could reach that kind of intensity. And hydrogen, for now, is simply too expensive for most to consider. That leaves NOC treading on mostly open ground. Their main rival so far? Electrified Thermal Solutions, a notable name, but hardly an overcrowded market.
NOC isn’t just boasting, either. They’ve pulled in $2.7 million in seed funding, with 360 Capital leading the round and support from SOSV and Desai VC. These dollars are already fueling real projects, not just prototypes in a lab.
Most customers, early on, will opt for the hybrid model. The beauty of NOC’s product is its flexibility—users can store hours of heat, take advantage of cheap surplus electricity (picture turbines spinning on a stormy night or solar fields under full sun), bank the energy, and draw it down whenever prices spike.
So what’s the secret inside this system? The heart of it is induction—technology familiar to anyone with a modern electric stovetop. Wind copper coils around a steel core, send current surging through, and you create swirling magnetic fields. Those fields make steel atoms jitter, and with that motion comes formidable heat.
But NOC takes it further. Inside each unit, thick copper coils nestle around massive ceramic cylinders—about two and a half meters across. Within these, steel balls are packed tight like marbles in a jar, all cocooned by thick insulation. When power courses through the copper, those steel spheres heat up fast. Blow air through them, and the heat can be siphoned right where it’s most needed, whether that’s molten glass or the raw tumult of a cement oven.
There are other ways to get intense heat from electricity, of course. Resistive heaters—the kind glowing orange inside your toaster—can do the job. But there’s a catch: the hotter they run, the shorter they last. Ceballos says that at 1,000˚ C, even top-tier resistance elements might limp along for a year. Push to 1,200˚ C, and their lifespans shrink to three months.
NOC’s design sidesteps this flaw entirely. Their copper coils never touch the inferno they spawn. Buried beneath half a meter of insulation, they stay cool—unscorched by the heat that radiates inward following invisible lines of magnetism.
The build allows for customization too. Need to store more heat, for longer? Stack up ceramic modules, layer in more steel spheres, and you have a thermal battery to your own size.
So far, a fridge-sized prototype has clocked 15,000 hours. Two larger units—a glassworks and a cement plant, both in France—are about to flick on for full-scale testing.
“To go hybrid is to bet on resilience,” says Ceballos, his tone hinting at the volatility of today’s world. With global uncertainty running high, the appeal is obvious—backup, choice, and breathing room.
—Tim De Chant, Senior Climate Reporter
(If you wish to contact Tim De Chant, reach him at tim.dechant@techcrunch.com.)
