This is big! Grid scale Sodium Ion battery technology is (on paper) the best candidate for cheap large scale electricity storage. The fact that this company is working on 9 pilot deployments mean that this will likely produce the real world results that the paper exercises promise.
There are SO MANY advantages of Sodium Ion battery tech for grid storage over everything else we’ve used so far (nearly all Lithium based).
Sodium Ion batteries:
- don’t have as intense thermal management needs Lithium chemistries
- don’t have the massive negative environmental impact for their source materials (because its a part of regular old table/sea salt)
- doesn’t have the massive swings in capacity when operated in extreme hot or cold temperatures. Sodium Ion doesn’t care.
The only downsides to Sodium Ion is that the batteries are physically larger for the same amount of energy stored (which isn’t a problem for stationary storage), and the charging/discharging curves are not as linear as other chemistries (which again, isn’t an issue because these are purpose built applications where the curves can easily be managed by battery management systems).
I love this too, I just hope they don’t use too much Phosphorous, because those reserves are limited too, maybe there are alternative designs once this gets going.
What about the environmental impact of degraded sodium ion batteries?
I’m not going to take sodium mining into account, as there are many ways that it can be extracted, with probably minimal impact, like salt evaporation ponds. I assume it’s less destructive than building a hydro dam.
everything else we’ve used so far (nearly all Lithium based).
We have used water before lithium, and it isn’t bad at all.
We have used water before lithium, and it isn’t bad at all.
Not so great in a flat dry desert though. Pump storage is great when there is lots of water and a naturally occurring elevation, but there’s lots of places on Earth that don’t have that, but do have energy to store.
in a flat dry desert
Hopefully you are free not to live there…
Middle east would like a word with you.
Middle-East involves plenty of mountainous areas, and the reason many of those are arid is because water, ahem, flows down.
Also in a flat dry desert one can replace pumping water up with raising heavy things up. I think. More wear though.
Not what I was replying to my dude.
Pumped hydro?
Also very good, but geographically limited.
I work for a controller OEM that builds the brains for managing these systems. It’s cutting edge stuff.
The part that controls/balances the discharge profiles, right? Because sodium batteries have a more non-linear discharge pattern.
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That the controller price or does it include the battery as well? What’s installation look like?
Just the controller. We don’t supply or fabricate anything power wise. We just have the connector that does the brains of the power management. It talks through cellular.
That much salt is not going to be good for blood pressure.
You’re not supposed to eat the electricity
First off, you’re not my mother.
Cow lick with kick
