Batteries are needed to store clean power from wind and solar, but the high cost of lithium batteries has slowed their widespread adoption.
Batteries are needed to store clean power from wind and solar, but the high cost of lithium batteries has slowed their widespread adoption. Companies have long sought to produce alternatives made of cheaper materials, like zinc, and Oregon-based ESS Inc. says it has now developed a more affordable and better-performing battery made with iron, Bloomberg reported.
CSB Energy Corp., a clean-energy firm, is planning to install these batteries at solar projects across the U.S., where they will store surplus power generated during the day and distribute it at night. The company will deploy enough batteries to power 50,000 American homes for a day.
“Unlike lithium-ion batteries, iron flow batteries are really cheap to manufacture,” Rich Hossfeld, CEO of SB Energy, told Bloomberg. “The battery is made of iron salt and water.”
While lithium-ion batteries have gotten dramatically cheaper over the last decade, with prices dropping around 90 percent, their dependence on expensive materials like nickel and cobalt means there is a limit to how far costs can fall. Whereas lithium-ion batteries used for power storage can cost up to $350 per kilowatt-hour, ESS’s iron-based battery could be purchased for as little $200 per kilowatt-hour or less by 2025 and store energy for longer, Bloomberg reported.
Read more at: Yale Environment 360
A recovering reef in Seychelles. (Photo Credit: Nick Graham, Lancaster University)
