Power storage technology has great potential -Lithium - Ion Battery Equipment
Renewable energy technologies have reportedly come a long way over the past few decades, finally making solar and wind power generation competitive with fossil fuels in price. But when the sun isn't shining or the wind isn't blowing, they're useless. Ted Wiley, CEO of Formenergy, a new energy storage company spun out of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said: "If we want to power the world with renewable energy, we need to find a way to overcome this possibility. Transgender so we can have energy when we want it."(Lithium - Ion Battery Equipment)
That means making up for changes in supply by storing excess energy in batteries that can store energy not just daily but for weeks or even months. FormEnergy, which is particularly concerned with longer-duration battery technology, is designing a new type of sulphur-based battery that can store renewable energy for months at a time at a fraction of current costs. Billionaires such as Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Jack Ma and Ridbranson have all invested in it.
Although the cost of lithium-ion batteries has dropped dramatically over the past decade, they are still too expensive to cover the longer periods of use, making renewable energy an important source of energy for our grid. Because of this, Yet-Ming Chiang, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and co-founder of FormEnergy, confirmed that one of the solutions the company is seeking is a "sulfur-flow battery". Formenergy CEO Willie previously co-founded battery startup aquonEnergy with funding from Gates. "If the sulfur flow battery idea succeeds, it could completely redefine the power industry," Wiley admits.
Jiang Yeming's early experimental results of sulfur batteries showed that rechargeable batteries could be produced using sulfur instead of lithium. Sulfur, a natural by-product of natural gas and oil refining, is not only abundant in reserves, it is also exceptionally good at storing energy for long periods of time. His conclusion in collaboration with Marco Ferrara, an MIT Ph.D. and energy storage modelling expert, is that renewable power generation, including this storage technology, could transform the global energy grid, Complete replacement of fossil fuels.
So far, FormEnergy has been reluctant to disclose specific details about the new technology. Fluidic batteries typically consist of two tanks containing some form of electroactive chemical element. Liquid is pumped through a central charging chamber containing positive and negative electrodes (anode and cathode), which is also where the energy storage and energy release processes take place. The charging chamber is divided into two parts by a membrane to ensure that the liquids do not actually touch each other. The advantages of fluid batteries include easy expansion and long cycle life. The disadvantage is that the energy density is low and the cost of components is high.
The sulphur that FormEnergy uses is cheap and abundant, which greatly reduces costs. As described in pV-Magazine, the battery uses sulfur in the anode and oxygenated liquid salt in the cathode. Oxygen in and out of the cathode discharges and charges the battery. "The battery can inhale and exhale air, but instead of exhaling carbon dioxide, it exhales oxygen. The purpose of this is to create charge balance by taking oxygen in and out of the system," explains Jiang Yeming.
FormEnergy's current battery samples are the size of a coffee cup. The scalability of fluid batteries means they can be upgraded to grid-scale storage capacity. In a paper on the technology published in 2017, Jiang Yeming said: "The storage chemistry cost of fluid batteries is the lowest among known batteries." The cost is as low as $1/kWh. Even adding the cost of edge systems, the total battery cost could be as low as $10/kWh, about one-tenth the cost of the most advanced lithium-ion batteries in use today.
Storage is fast becoming the "holy grail" of renewable energy. The intermittent nature of renewable energy production (higher energy when the sun is shining or windy, and lower vice versa) makes it imperative to find ways to store energy. Not just in storage for a day or two, but seasonal production can vary greatly over time. Other technologies, such as pumped hydro and compressed air storage, currently have a minimum cost of $100/kWh, but geography heavily impacts their potential. If Elon Musk is right, lithium-ion batteries are also fast approaching this benchmark, but these batteries still have certain limitations in their energy storage capabilities.
That means making up for changes in supply by storing excess energy in batteries that can store energy not just daily but for weeks or even months. FormEnergy, which is particularly concerned with longer-duration battery technology, is designing a new type of sulphur-based battery that can store renewable energy for months at a time at a fraction of current costs. Billionaires such as Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Jack Ma and Ridbranson have all invested in it.
Although the cost of lithium-ion batteries has dropped dramatically over the past decade, they are still too expensive to cover the longer periods of use, making renewable energy an important source of energy for our grid. Because of this, Yet-Ming Chiang, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and co-founder of FormEnergy, confirmed that one of the solutions the company is seeking is a "sulfur-flow battery". Formenergy CEO Willie previously co-founded battery startup aquonEnergy with funding from Gates. "If the sulfur flow battery idea succeeds, it could completely redefine the power industry," Wiley admits.
Jiang Yeming's early experimental results of sulfur batteries showed that rechargeable batteries could be produced using sulfur instead of lithium. Sulfur, a natural by-product of natural gas and oil refining, is not only abundant in reserves, it is also exceptionally good at storing energy for long periods of time. His conclusion in collaboration with Marco Ferrara, an MIT Ph.D. and energy storage modelling expert, is that renewable power generation, including this storage technology, could transform the global energy grid, Complete replacement of fossil fuels.
So far, FormEnergy has been reluctant to disclose specific details about the new technology. Fluidic batteries typically consist of two tanks containing some form of electroactive chemical element. Liquid is pumped through a central charging chamber containing positive and negative electrodes (anode and cathode), which is also where the energy storage and energy release processes take place. The charging chamber is divided into two parts by a membrane to ensure that the liquids do not actually touch each other. The advantages of fluid batteries include easy expansion and long cycle life. The disadvantage is that the energy density is low and the cost of components is high.
The sulphur that FormEnergy uses is cheap and abundant, which greatly reduces costs. As described in pV-Magazine, the battery uses sulfur in the anode and oxygenated liquid salt in the cathode. Oxygen in and out of the cathode discharges and charges the battery. "The battery can inhale and exhale air, but instead of exhaling carbon dioxide, it exhales oxygen. The purpose of this is to create charge balance by taking oxygen in and out of the system," explains Jiang Yeming.
FormEnergy's current battery samples are the size of a coffee cup. The scalability of fluid batteries means they can be upgraded to grid-scale storage capacity. In a paper on the technology published in 2017, Jiang Yeming said: "The storage chemistry cost of fluid batteries is the lowest among known batteries." The cost is as low as $1/kWh. Even adding the cost of edge systems, the total battery cost could be as low as $10/kWh, about one-tenth the cost of the most advanced lithium-ion batteries in use today.
Storage is fast becoming the "holy grail" of renewable energy. The intermittent nature of renewable energy production (higher energy when the sun is shining or windy, and lower vice versa) makes it imperative to find ways to store energy. Not just in storage for a day or two, but seasonal production can vary greatly over time. Other technologies, such as pumped hydro and compressed air storage, currently have a minimum cost of $100/kWh, but geography heavily impacts their potential. If Elon Musk is right, lithium-ion batteries are also fast approaching this benchmark, but these batteries still have certain limitations in their energy storage capabilities.
