High Energy Density Potassium-Based Flow Battery
Critical Need:
Our national electric grid has limited ability to store excess energy, so electricity must constantly be over-generated to assure reliable supply. Though wind and solar power are promising clean alternatives to fossil fuels, their natural unpredictability and intermittency make them incapable of delivering the power on-demand necessary to operate today’s grid. The U.S. needs technologies that can cost-effectively store renewable energy for future grid use at any location. Flexible, large-scale storage would create a stronger and more robust electric grid by enabling renewables to contribute to reliable power generation.
Project Innovation + Advantages:
Teledyne Scientific & Imaging is developing a water-based, potassium-ion flow battery for low-cost stationary energy storage. Flow batteries store chemical energy in external tanks instead of within the battery container. This allows for cost-effective scalability because adding storage capacity is as simple as expanding the tank. Teledyne is increasing the energy and power density of their battery by 2-5 times compared to today’s state-of-the-art vanadium flow battery. Their safe, scalable, low-cost energy storage technology would facilitate more widespread adoption and deployment of renewable energy technology.
Potential Impact:
If successful, Teledyne’s new flow battery would provide a practical path to removing the cost barriers for grid-scale energy storage systems.
Security:
A more efficient and reliable grid would be more resilient to potential disruptions.
Environment:
Electricity generation accounts for over 40% of U.S. carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. Enabling large-scale contributions of wind and solar power for our electricity generation would result in a substantial decrease in CO2 emissions.
Economy:
Increases in the availability of wind and solar power would reduce fossil fuel demand, resulting in reduced fuel prices and more stable electricity rates.
Contact
ARPA-E Program Director:
Dr. John Lemmon
Project Contact:
Dr. Olivier Sudre
Press and General Inquiries Email:
ARPA-E-Comms@hq.doe.gov
Project Contact Email:
osudre@teledyne-si.com
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Release Date:
11/28/2012