Environment & Energy
Related: About this forumStartup Thinks Its Battery Will Solve Renewable Energy’s Big Flaw
Aquion has started production of a low-cost sodium-ion battery aimed at making renewable energy viable.
A former Sony TV factory near Pittsburgh is coming to life again after lying idle for four years. Whirring robotic arms have started to assemble a new kind of battery that could make the grid more efficient and let villages run on solar power around the clock.
Aquion, the startup that developed the battery, has finished installing its first commercial-scale production line at the factory, and is sending out batteries for customers to evaluate. It recently raised $55 million of venture capital funding from investors including Bill Gates. The money will help it ramp up to full-speed production by this spring.
Jay Whitacre, the Carnegie Mellon professor of materials science and engineering who invented the new battery, says it will cost about as much as a lead-acid batteryone of the cheapest types of battery availablebut will last more than twice as long. And while lead is toxic and the sulfuric-acid electrolyte in lead-acid batteries is potentially dangerous, the new battery is made of materials so safe you can eat them (although Whitacre says they taste terrible). Nontoxic materials are also a good fit for remote areas, where maintenance is difficult.
Read the rest at: http://www.technologyreview.com/news/523391/startup-thinks-its-battery-will-solve-renewable-energys-big-flaw/
Laelth
(32,017 posts)Storage is the big issue. The sun doesn't shine at night, and we demand power 24/7.
-Laelth
madokie
(51,076 posts)What we need is a better battery and on the surface this sounds like it might just be it.
hunter
(38,346 posts)I got to this:
http://www.aquionenergy.com/energy-storage-technology
After that they want to know who I am.
(Heh, I'm a Hobbit, out to take their precious.)