A group of billionaires including Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Jack Ma, and Richard Branson have invested in Form Energy. The company, out of MIT, is designing a new type of battery, thought to be based on sulfur. If early reports of success turn into practical solutions, the technology could store energy for months at a time at a fraction of the current cost.

The Readily-Available Solution

Form Energy has so far been reticent to reveal the exact details of their new technology. However, Yet-Ming Chiang, an MIT professor and one of the company’s founders, has confirmed that one of the solutions it is pursuing is a “sulfur-flow battery.” Chiang described this technology in some detail in a scientific paper in 2017.

Flow batteries generally consist of two tanks containing some form of electroactive chemical elements. The liquid is pumped through a central charging chamber containing positive and negative electrodes (anode and cathode). This is where the energy storage and energy release process takes place. The chamber is separated in two by a membrane that ensures the liquids don’t come into actual contact with each other, as shown in the video.

The advantages of flow batteries include easy scalability and long cycle life. Among its disadvantages are relatively low energy density and high component cost.

Form Energy’s use of sulfur, which is both cheap and abundant, lowers those costs dramatically.

As described in PV-Magazine, the battery uses sulfur in the anode and aerated liquid salt in the cathode. Oxygen flowing in and out of the cathode makes the battery discharge and charge.

“This battery literally inhales and exhales air, but it doesn’t exhale carbon dioxide, it exhales oxygen. What this does is create a charge balance by taking oxygen in and out of the system,” Yet-Ming Chiang explained to PV-Magazine.

The largest energy storage system comprising electric car batteries in Europe has been switched on today in Amsterdam, where it will help power the Ajax football team’s Johan Cruijff Arena.

Nissan has supplied the equivalent of 148 new and used Leafbatteries to the location as part of a collaboration with technology firms, including electric power company Eaton, and local authorities. The battery cells enable the storage of energy captured by the 4200 solar panels on the roof of the stadium.

Nissan said the 3MW and 2.8MWh storage technology, which will help to flatline the stadium’s demand from the Dutch electricity grid, would provide “reliable and efficient energy” to the stadium and its neighbours. During low-energy periods, it can even contribute to the grid.

Nissan said the new system “creates a circular economy for electric vehicle batteries”. The company’s energy boss, Francisco Carranza, said “re-purposing the batteries of Nissan electric vehicles can contribute to making the whole energy system more efficient and sustainable”.

Henk van Raan, director of innovation at the Johan Cruijff Arena, said that the system will assure the arena with “a considerable amount of power, even during an outage”. He said the stadium will also “contribute to a stable Dutch energy grid”.

The Dutch power system is the latest of several investments made by Nissan to extend the usability and life of its electric car batteries. Earlier this year, it began a project with the British government to install 1000 vehicle-to-grid (V2G) charging points across the UK over the next three years.

Carranza said: “We’re putting our electric ecosystem at the heart of a sustainable future, transforming the way we drive and the way we live”.

The city of Sydney, Australia, has set a goal of obtaining 50% of the electricity it consumes from renewable sources by 2030. As part of that program, it has recently activated a 1,600 solar power installations coupled with a 500 kWh of Tesla Powerpack battery installations, according to the Sydney Morning Herald. The solar panels are installed on the roof of the city’s Alexandra Canal transport depot (see below).

While the solar installation isn’t the city’s largest — Sydney Markets in Flemington is powered by nearly 8,600 solar panels — it is the first to combine solar with large-scale batteries similar to Tesla’s massive battery unit in South Australia. At the commissioning ceremony on Wednesday, Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore said the project was part of the city’s wider push towards greater sustainability and fighting climate change. Many parts of Sydney are located on the shores of its famous harbor and could be significantly affected by rising ocean levels.

“Growing the uptake of renewable energy is critical in combating the worst impacts of climate change,” Ms. Moore said. “We’re working towards a target of 50 per cent of all electricity in the City of Sydney area to come from renewables by 2030. To help us achieve that target we’re covering the roofs of our properties with as many solar panels as possible.

“By mid-2021, we expect to have more than 7,800 solar panels on the roofs of our properties. As the mix of storage and generation on our electricity grid changes, solar solutions like this could provide reliability and resilience to our electricity network and potentially prevent blackouts.”

She also said the battery installation will allow the depot to be classified as carbon neutral and eliminate about 600 tons of carbon dioxide emissions annually.

While not nearly as large as the Tesla battery storage facility installed in South Australia last year, the solar panels and batteries will allow the depot to reduce its demand on the grid during peak times while also cutting power costs. That first installation proved to doubters that battery storage could eliminate the need for costly peaker plants, electric generating facilities that are brought online during the hours of peak demand. The batteries will be remotely managed in real time by electricity transmission group TransGrid.

TransGrid chief executive Paul Italiano said battery storage will be playing a greater role in the future of Sydney’s electricity network. “This initiative with the City of Sydney will afford the depot a significant amount of energy self-sufficiency while also sharing benefits with the wider community through the electricity network. By partnering with a site where this service is needed, we can support the City of Sydney’s renewable energy goals and reduce the cost of the council’s depot,” he said. The goal is to install 1.5-megawatt hours of battery storage capacity across all council buildings in Sydney.

Now that automakers are all working on electric vehicles, the issue of what happens to used batteries has come up. Hyundai, with help from Finnish energy-technology company Wärtsilä, has come up with a solution — turning them into a way to store energy. The South Korean automaker announced the new plan earlier this week. 

Old Batteries As A Form Of Energy Storage

At the moment, companies only have two options when it comes to used car batteries — use them as a form of storage or recycle them for materials. Hyundai and Wärtsilä want to do the former to help the energy storage market, which is growing. Going down the route of using batteries to store energy should also help with the adoption of renewable energy. 

As The Drive points out, using batteries as an energy source helps fill in gaps for when other sources of renewable energy aren’t operating at their fullest. Wind mills and solar panels are fantastics ways of getting energy, but for times when the sun isn’t completely shining or the wind isn’t blowing, electric sources using old batteries can help add some juice to the mix. And the batteries would also help the sources harvest more energy. 

Hyundai has reportedly already made a one-megawatt-hour test array utilizing old batteries from the Ioniq Electric and Kia Soul EV. In the near future, Hyundai wants to provide its used batteries to Wärtsilä. The latter will use its extensive network to provide those batteries to other companies in need. Apparently, Wärtsilä’s network extends across 177 countries around the world. 

In the near future, Hyundai plans to have 29 gigawatt-hours of used electric-car batteries ready for use by 2025. That figure exceeds what the stationary storage market currently has on tap, which is 10 gigawatt-hours for storage. 

“Wärtsilä through the capabilities and integration experience of Greensmith Energy, will develop a cleaner and more powerful approach to second-life battery applications for Hyundai Motor Group,” said Javier Cavada, President of Wärtsilä Energy Solutions. “Our strategic partnership with Hyundai Motor Group represents the life-cycle vision Wärtsilä strives to deliver to our customers and partners around the world. Incorporating second-life-EV batteries into our energy and integration business underscores our deep commitment to building sustainable societies with smart technologies.” 

Like most consumables in today’s world, batteries from electric and hybrid vehicles have a tipping point beyond which they are no longer viable for use. Instead of stacking these used batteries in some fenced landfill for our grandchildren to deal with, Daimler AG is adapting electric car batteries into energy storage units. The most recent installation is an Elverlingsen, South Westphalia, “live replacement parts store” for the fleet of third generation Mercedes electric smarts.

A joint venture between partners Daimler AG, its subsidiary Mercedes-Benz Energy, GETEC ENERGIE, and technology company The Mobility House has bundled a total of 1920 battery modules in a plant in Elverlingsen in South Westphalia to create an energy storage facility. The stored battery modules are sufficient for at least 600 vehicles. With installed power output of 8.96MW and energy capacity of 9.8MWh, the battery storage plant is available to the energy market, for example, for supplying primary balancing power. Its modular design enables the system to continuously and fully automatically stabilize the power grid.

What To Do With All The Used EV Batteries?

Finding ways to reuse the technology is becoming more urgent as the global stockpile of EV batteries is forecast to exceed the equivalent of about 3.4 million packs by 2025, compared with about 55,000 this year, according to calculations based on Bloomberg NEF data. “The car manufacturers have an upcoming problem, and one that we are already starting to see: this massive volume of batteries,” said Johan Stjernberg, chief executive officer of Box of Energy AB. “The market will be enormous for second-life applications with storage.”

Property owners, developers, and utilities are looking for ways to harness energy storage from these inexpensive used batteries in a “second life” to help integrate variable renewables and save electricity costs. A report from Berkeley Law Center — part of a series on how climate change will create opportunities for specific sectors of the business community and how policy-makers can facilitate those opportunities — says vehicle battery storage programs can aggregate multiple used batteries to develop a bulk, commercial-scale energy storage system and microgrid backup system, among other demonstrations. Lithium-ion car and bus batteries, according to the report, “can collect and discharge electricity for a further 7 to 10 years after being taken off the roads and stripped from chassis.” This extended life has significant consequences for global automakers, electricity providers, and raw-materials suppliers.

Second-life batteries can provide backup power for homes and businesses, and utilities can dispatch peak power from these distributed batteries to relieve expensive fossil fuel-burning power plants, which can compensate for any decreases in renewable energy supply. To be usable as a replacement, a battery needs regular cycling during the storage period –- deliberate, battery-conserving charging and discharging. This prevents exhaustive discharge, which can lead to battery problems.

Leclanché and VRB Energy, two providers in very different areas of energy storage, have struck up joint ventures (JVs) intended to assist them in scaling up and hitting new markets, while Ice Energy has netted fresh funding.

Flow battery maker VRB Energy has struck a supply deal with the ‘world’s largest producer of vanadium oxide’. Covered in the most recent edition of PV Tech Power as one of four flow battery providers at different stages of commercialisation and known in China as Pu Neng, VRB this week announced a “strategic cooperation framework agreement” with Pangang Group Vanadium and Titanium Resources Co. Ltd.

The deal was announced by Sparton Resources, which through a subsidiary owns about 18% of VRB. The remaining 82% is in the control of the I-Pulse group of companies, headed by mining industry veteran Robert Friedland. In the PV Tech Power article, VRB representative Jim Stover said the vertical integration of materials into the company’s supply chain would be vital to ongoing cost reduction efforts and scaling up.

Battery and energy storage system maker Leclanché, was announced to be working with Enel on its first storage project in Germany in February and earlier this month netted CHF75 million (US$76 million) from its main existing investor, FEFAM.

The company has now begun a joint venture (JV) with lead acid battery maker Exide Technologies, to target the Indian market for EVs and stationary energy storage by building lithium-ion batteries and complete systems for both applications. At a basic level, Leclanché will share knowledge and intellectual property on lithium batteries with Exide, while the latter offers access to an “extensive sales network and brand”, Leclanché said.