Worth Knowing: New Electric-Grid Batteries Turn Heat Into Light
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Asegun Henry has a bright idea for how to make clean generation more reliable—a design that banks energy in molten metal, ready to feed back into the grid at night or when the wind dies down. What’s more, he says it can be cheaper than chemical batteries, such as lithium-ion cells, as well as other heat-based storage systems. Alternative battery ventures like his company, Fourth Power, are drawing money from Silicon-Valley style VCs, but veteran energy-industry investors are more skeptical that these startups can compete.?
Energy storage is the essential technology for renewable generating sources, such as?solar and wind. Not only are these generators intermittent, they may produce more power at certain times than the grid needs. Thus, electricity providers with a significant renewable generation mix need to draw on other sources when output is low, and bank energy when production exceeds demand.?
The problem is that the most market-ready energy storage technology involves chemical batteries that are both expensive and in high demand, or physical storage, such as pumped water, that isn’t always practical. Absent cheaper energy storage, grid operators will fall back on other sources to make up shortfalls. That often means substituting power from baseline generators burning fossil fuels, such as coal or natural gas.?
Technology start-ups are entering the field, backed by some big investments, to bring new thinking to the energy storage problem. Last December, for example, Boston-based?Fourth Power?received $19 million in venture capital funding, led by California-based?DCVC, to begin construction of a demonstration facility, which stores energy in a medium of molten metal. The company expects the 1 MWh system to be completed in 2026.?
But better technology isn’t the only challenge, says Kara Rodby, a technology principal at Volta Energy Technologies, an Illinois-based venture capital firm focused on energy storage.??
“I am not worried about the technical readiness of the long-duration energy storage (LDES) space broadly,†Rodby says. “The issues are mainly related to market readiness and commercialization path.â€
Read Michael Puttré's full piece here.
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