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Ambri's revolutionary Liquid Metal (easier to remember than Reversible Ambipolar Electrolysis) battery technology has progressed in only a couple of years from a shotglass sized (3/4" dia) battery with 1 Wh discharge rate capacity, to a hockey puck sized (3" dia) 20 Wh cap. battery, to a saucer sized (6" dia) 200 Wh cap. battery through a 4x4" square prototype cell module to an 8x8" production cell that can be be ganged to make larger units, like the Fall 2013 Testbed of 36 cells and 2 kWh, and now the Spring 2014 Alpha Core unit of 432 cells and 20kWh, and beyond!
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Ambri hopes to have its first scaled 20-kilowatt-hour units operational early this year, with 35-kilowatt-hour commercial units coming in 2015. A larger system will reach 200 kilowatt-hours in 3 cubic meters. The 10-ton weight of that unit will serve as an effective theft deterrent, joked Bradwell.
The expected use of these batteries is in buffering power grids that have substantial input from intermittent power sources like wind turbines and solar panels.
Could they be used for other purposes besides the grid? Like maybe vehicles too?
My guess would be these are a good fit for fixed base, continuous current applications only. They're heavy, and they run at high temperatures. But as a buffer between your wind turbine and the grid, they could be a good fit.
My guess would be these are a good fit for fixed base, continuous current applications only. They're heavy, and they run at high temperatures. But as a buffer between your wind turbine and the grid, they could be a good fit.
You wouldn't need or want a battery in a grid connected situation. Batteries at this scale are off grid devices. Grid connected batteries need to be dispatchable to be useful. Buffering a small wind turbine does nothing of value for the system.
You wouldn't need or want a battery in a grid connected situation. Batteries at this scale are off grid devices. Grid connected batteries need to be dispatchable to be useful. Buffering a small wind turbine does nothing of value for the system.
I think you misunderstood what I was trying to say. These batteries are intended for use as a power grid component, to buffer grid-tie installations with intermittent power sources like solar and wind.
Here in Hawai'i we've had such rapid expansion of residential grid-ties that the utility company has frozen new applications until grid instability issues can be resolved. High capacity batteries like this, deployed to local grid cells, could reduce dependance on large fossil fuel generators being kept on line to provide grid stability.
Another possible use is as an output buffer for a large wind farm or solar array to turn its intermittent power output into a smooth 24/7 output. There's a large wind farm proposed on the island of Lanai, with underwater cables to feed power to Oahu, that really needs something like this to be practical. There's a solar farm in the California desert using molten salt batteries for the same purpose.
Large scale power storage is considered the "missing link" for large scale deployment of intermittent power sources like wind, solar, tide power, etc., and this technology appears very promising because it uses fairly common materials and seems stable.
I understood and frankly I disagree with your utility.
Storage on the grid has it's maximum value when dispatched as a utility controlled resource. Shaping the output of a variable generator doesn't really make any sense. The basic variability of load on the grid is substantially higher than this. Think about the fact that the grid is designed to operate when the largest generating resource (typically 1000 MW) trips instantaneously off line. What difference does a collection of roof mounted PV or small wind turbines make?
Storage on the grid has it's maximum value when dispatched as a utility controlled resource. Shaping the output of a variable generator doesn't really make any sense. The basic variability of load on the grid is substantially higher than this. Think about the fact that the grid is designed to operate when the largest generating resource (typically 1000 MW) trips instantaneously off line. What difference does a collection of roof mounted PV or small wind turbines make?
I'm not an engineer, so I dunno, but our largest oil fired plant is 73 MW, geothermal is 43 MW, wind is 21 MW and those three are roughly equidistant at triangular corners of the island. Plus several others, and a large number of individual grid-tie residential installations. Current estimate is that more than 45% of the electricity now comes from renewable energy sources, and HELCO says the aging grid here was never designed to handle this kind of distribution.
I'm not an engineer, so I dunno, but our largest oil fired plant is 73 MW, geothermal is 43 MW, wind is 21 MW and those three are roughly equidistant at triangular corners of the island. Plus several others, and a large number of individual grid-tie residential installations. Current estimate is that more than 45% of the electricity now comes from renewable energy sources, and HELCO says the aging grid here was never designed to handle this kind of distribution.
I am an engineer and have worked in the industry for over 30 years. I would agree that the distribution system wasn't designed with distributed generation in mind, but if installed as roof top units they are individually quite small. As long as the installation are approximately the same as the house load, I doubt there's actually a problem. It's always easier as a utility to claim there are potential problems.
I am an engineer and have worked in the industry for over 30 years. I would agree that the distribution system wasn't designed with distributed generation in mind, but if installed as roof top units they are individually quite small. As long as the installation are approximately the same as the house load, I doubt there's actually a problem. It's always easier as a utility to claim there are potential problems.
This may be true for solar, but wind energy is a different animal completely. While generally the solar power production scales in phase with the load (the most air conditioners kick on when the sun is brightest) , wind power generation is most abundant when the load is smallest, destabilizing the grid and essentially wasting most of the capacity.
However, I don't think these batteries will be used outside of possibly niche applications for a variety of reasons. First, they will be less efficient and more expensive than PHES (pumped hydro energy storage) for large scale applications, and there are some series problems with the designs that will prevent them from being all that efficient, at least with current technology.
First of all, the energy storage density is too low, and the operating temperature is too high. There is simply no way to get that much energy in and out of it while preventing heat loss. Materials that are good conductors of electricity are also good conductors of heat. If they were able to thermally isolate this system, it would be wonderful, but that simply isn't possible if you need to get electrons in and out of it with metal conductors. I do like the technology, but I think it will need a much higher density before it can compete with other storage methods.
By the way, I am an electrochemist, and I worked for the DOE at a national laboratory on several projects related to batteries and hydrogen storage. I don't claim to understand the electrical engineering of the grid, but electrochemical reversibility and energy storage are some things that I have extensively researched.
Hawaii may be a niche where this tech works, though. Due to the island's geology, construction of deep mine shafts or tall towers to produce gravitational gradients for PHES is not feasible. Also, wind energy is quite abundant in Hawaii, and from what I have heard, upgrading the grid is very expensive. I could see how, at least in the short term, it could be cost effective to use these batteries for a while so that the wind power can continue to develop, at least until a longer term solution is found.
Finally, this link is a press release. Press releases are designed to make any boring thing sound earth shattering so that they can attract investors. If you believe the tone of the press release, every major world technological problem has been solved hundreds of times. My take home from this whole thread is that some utility in Hawaii chose to get their batteries, which are slightly different than the old ones, from a tech startup that wants more money.
My take home from this whole thread is that some utility in Hawaii chose to get their batteries, which are slightly different than the old ones, from a tech startup that wants more money.
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