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First ESS Iron Flow Battery To Go Online This Month
ESS has signed a deal with SB Energy for 2 gigawatt-hours
of iron flow battery storage.
ESS is a manufacturer of iron
flow batteries in the state of Oregon. At
the present time, lithium-ion batteries account for about 85% of
grid-scale energy storage. That technology is time-tested and
reliable. Prices continue to fall, but lithium-ion batteries have some
issues.
They use materials like lithium, cobalt, manganese, aluminum, and
nickel that can be expensive, especially if they are in short supply.
They can also catch fire and begin to degrade after thousands of
charge/discharge cycles. But the biggest issue with lithium-ion
batteries is they can only put stored electricity back into the grid
for 2 to 4 hours.
Iron flow batteries use three
of the most abundant elements on Earth — iron, salt, and water. They
consist of two storage tanks with a membrane between them. The
membrane allows electrons to flow back and forth between the tanks
while keeping the liquids separate.
If that sounds easy, it’s not. Getting the right mix of iron, salt,
and water is critical, and creating a membrane that lasts a long time
is no easy thing. But ESS has products ready to go and has just signed
a deal with SB Energy, a division of SoftBank, to provide 2 gigawatt-hours
(GWh) of its iron flow batteries between now and 2026. The first of
the batteries will be deployed at a solar power plant in Davis,
California this month.
In a press
release, Rich Hossfeld of SB Energy
says, “ESS’s unique ability to manufacture and ship batteries using
iron, salt, and water is a game-changer, enabling SB Energy to offer
our customers safe, sustainable and low-cost energy storage today.
Long duration storage is absolutely critical to providing flexible,
affordable renewable energy at scale and aligns perfectly with the
Biden administration’s ambitious clean energy initiatives. SB Energy
is excited to continue its partnership with ESS and deploy the
company’s domestically manufactured batteries into the vast and
rapidly growing market for energy storage.”
Eric Dresselhuys, CEO of ESS CEO, agrees. “This agreement exemplifies
the accelerating demand for long-duration energy storage and
reinforces our strong partnership with SB Energy to supply safe and
sustainable technology built in the US. The energy transition will
require massive amounts of storage capacity in the coming years and we
are focused on scaling up our manufacturing capacity to help meet that
demand. We are fortunate to have such great partners as SB Energy and
Breakthrough Energy Ventures and look forward to a long and expanding
partnership.”
Dresselhuys adds, “This deal is really the culmination of years of
work to show that there’s a better mousetrap out there that solves
more problems and is better for where the grid is going. Once people
see that we’ve been vetted and tested and approved by partners like
SB, that provides a lot of confidence.”
Image credit: ESS Inc.
ESS claims its flow batteries
last for more than 20,000 charge/discharge cycles and can provide
energy for up to 12 hours. In addition, they have a life expectancy of
25 years and are easily recyclable when their useful life is over. The
company says it uses the same electrolyte on both the negative and
positive sides of the equation,which eliminates the
cross-contamination and degradation that shortens the life of other
flow batteries.
“Our patented electrode design and control system, coupled with our
simple, yet elegant electrochemistry, allows you to operate longer, at
higher efficiency and deeper discharge levels. Unlike typical
batteries packaged as fixed cells or modules, a flow battery has
significantly more energy storage capacity, which gives the user the
flexibility to align both the power and amount of electricity stored
precisely to a project’s requirements today and for the future.”
In addition to the deal with SB Energy, ESS has also been tapped by
Enel to supply 17 of its shipping container-sized Energy Warehouse
battery systems with a combined capacity of 8.5 megawatt-hours (MWh)
to solar facilities in Spain.
Time-shifting is the operative concept when it comes to energy
storage. Some people like to play to the grandstand and suggest smugly
that the wind doesn’t always blow and the sun doesn’t always shine,
and that’s why we need to keep thermal and nuclear generating plants
functioning. But that blather misses the point.
As MIT
noted in 2011,”The sunlight that reaches
Earth every day dwarfs all the planet’s other energy sources. This
solar energy is clearly sufficient in scale to meet all of mankind’s
energy needs — if it can be harnessed and stored in a cost-effective
way.” It says some 173,000 terawatts of
solar energy strike the Earth every day — 10,000 times more energy
than necessary to meet the energy needs of the entire human race. And
it’s free,
people! All we need to do is figure out how to harvest it, store it,
and distribute it. That’s where time-shifting comes in. Generate it
now, store, and use it later when the sun is over the horizon.
No one is suggesting the ESS iron flow batteries are
the only solution to energy storage, but at a projected cost of
around $25
per kilowatt-hour, they clearly should be
part of the mix of available energy storage technologies.
Green Play Ammonia™, Yielder® NFuel Energy.
Spokane, Washington. 99212
www.exactrix.com
509 995 1879 cell, Pacific.
exactrix@exactrix.com
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