13 ms·
Form Energy reveals the chemistry of its long-duration battery
- imglorp 5y agoForm Energy, ... Fe, get it?
- lovemenot 5y agoOperating cash will be held in a trust called the Form Energy Offset Organisation.
- ummonk 5y agoI bet their IT team uses Rust.
- tiddelypom 5y agoHehe maybe we should start. (We're a python shop though.)
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- Faaak 5y agoI'd love to be able to buy "cheap" batteries that are big, large, heavy, but cheap (per kWh). Sadly there are many startups but none are selling as of now. The only one I found ("Salt battery") was more expensive than Lithium but with less cycles...
- Andys 5y agoEdison batteries (Nickle-iron), although expensive initialy, are apparently the cheapest batteries once you factor in their lifetime of multiple decades without degradation.
- jiminymcmoogley 5y agoI'd also look into LTO (lithium titanate oxide) if you're interested in long term cost per KWh, not because they are cheap by any means but because they (allegedly) last so long that you'd only be able to replace them maybe twice over your lifetime, it's a pretty new chemistry so unfortunately it's rather early days to verify whether any of the consumer offerings available today will actually perform for as long as the companies manufacturing them suggest (I've seen figures quoted everywhere between 5000 and 30000 cycles at 70% DoD), or whether you could even take advantage of those kinds of cycle counts before the cells just died from calendar ageing. Back to NiFe though, you can certainly get decades of use comfortably out of NiFe cells, but it's worth taking into account that they require a lot of maintenance, routinely topping up each cell with deionized water (there are automated systems you can buy or build yourself to manage this though), and every few years the KOH electrolyte inside them will need replacing every few years, plus you will want to keep your cells adequately ventilated as they vent hydrogen periodically. I would definitely NOT recommend lead-acid, sure the upfront cost is lower than anything else by quite a ways, but they won't last long at all, and as a result I'd be surprised if you weren't paying a lot more in the long run.
- newyankee 5y agoDo you think they are expensive because new and not manufactured at scale, or because titanium/titanate is expensive ? I know that Toshiba manufactures these and apparently it was in talk with Apple to contract manufacture it for them.
- Robotbeat 5y agoIt’s worth mentioning that cheap (and safe and and abundant mineral resource) LiFePO4 batteries can last 5000 cycles or more if you charge and discharge them carefully.
- tehjoker 5y agoInteresting concept. How does humidity affect it the oxidation/reduction process?
- iseanstevens 5y agoI got the impression from their page that the cells are immersed in liquid electrolyte. I’d guess that humidity shouldn’t effect things much
- Neil44 5y agoTo be cynical, I’m not sure how fast responding and controllable rusting and un-rusting iron will be. But even so this sounds useful.
- thefoodboylover 5y agovery good
- 2sk21 5y ago“We’ve completed the science, what’s left to do is scale up from lab-scale prototypes to grid-scale power plants." I can't even count the number of lab-stage announcements that I have seen in HN. This will be of interest only when they can get it to scale
- SV_BubbleTime 5y agoGraphene can do everything! Except get out of the lab.
- Retric 5y agoThis seems to be aiming to start a pilot project in 2 years which suggests it’s well past the lab stage. It’s perfectly reasonable to assume it’s going to fail, but that’s normal for startups.
- cogman10 5y agoThis is quite a bit more promising than a lot of those projects. They are actually manufacturing the batteries for a battery plant. That's quite a bit further along than a lot of battery announcements are.
- Animats 5y agoCan you buy a sample battery? The announcement is suspicious. "100 hours" is not a meaningful number for a battery. The numbers you want to hear are KWH/Kg, KWH/m^3, max charge and discharge rates, number of charge/discharge cycles before storage drops off, efficiency, and cost/KWH. "That project, announced in May last year, was originally due to be a 1MW/150MWh demonstration plant capable of outputting 1MW for 150 hours straight" hints that the discharge rate may be very low. Previous work [2] indicates serious limits on charge/discharge cycles. Like 20-30 cycles. [2] https://phys.org/news/2017-11-renaissance-iron-air-battery.html https://phys.org/news/2017-11-renaissance-iron-air-battery.h...
- coder543 5y ago> "100 hours" is not a meaningful number for a battery. It is a meaningful number... in the grid scale energy storage market. It's a term that summarizes many of the complex properties you mentioned. For a given energy storage technology, there is a certain duration that it tends to be most effective at. For traditional lithium ion batteries, that duration is about 4 hours. If you want to use lithium ion storage for longer durations than that, then you're making substantial sacrifices in cost effectiveness, utilization rate, etc. Obviously one of the huge areas of research is long duration energy storage, to smooth over energy availability fluctuations that last weeks or months. Some might argue that Form Energy is addressing medium duration energy storage, and there isn't really any technology suited for true long duration energy storage yet. If Form Energy's technology works out, then they're saying they've developed a battery technology that is 10x more cost effective than lithium ion on a per kWh basis, but that the technology cannot discharge as quickly as lithium ion, which makes it better suited for medium duration energy storage. You could do the same thing with Lithium Ion, it would just be cost prohibitive... 10x as expensive, supposedly. What I've shared above is my understanding from following lots of news about green energy tech for years now, but I'm not an expert who can answer a bunch of additional questions... but your comment about 100 hours not being a meaningful number isn't accurate. It is meaningful to the target audience.
- philipkglass 5y agoWiley said that a 300MW “pilot” project for Minnesota-based Great River Energy will be commissioned in 2023. That project, announced in May last year, was originally due to be a 1MW/150MWh demonstration plant capable of outputting 1MW for 150 hours straight. If the energy had gone up 300x from the originally announced pilot project the same way the power did, this would be a huge storage project boasting 45,000 MWh of storage capacity. It would surpass big pumped storage projects like the Bath County station (capacity: 24,000 MWh): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bath_County_Pumped_Storage_Station https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bath_County_Pumped_Storage_Sta... But this news article doesn't highlight any superlatives like that. Reading between the lines, here's what I think has changed: - The original announcement of a 1MW/150MWh project was an implicit admission that their battery could not charge or discharge quickly. It took nearly a week to fully charge/discharge. At the time they put a positive spin on it by emphasizing "long duration." That's not really an advantage, though. You can just discharge a high-rate-capable battery slower for long duration applications. - Since this updated pilot project announcement touts more power and leaves any energy increase unspecified, I think that they found a way to increase the charge/discharge rate for their chemistry. That would be good because it would mean that the chemistry is suited for grid tied storage in general, more like lithium ion. If it can charge and discharge at high C-rates and it has lower lifetime cycle cost per megawatt hour than lithium ion batteries, it could be very successful. EDIT: new user "tiddelypom" below says that he works at Form Energy and that this article is incorrect about the project size: Not sure where that article got the 300MW number, the GRE project is on track for the original size. If that is the case, my remarks about the limitations of batteries with low C-rates still apply. But my speculation that the company has drastically improved the C-rate of its chemistry would be incorrect.
- amluto 5y ago> It took nearly a week to fully charge/discharge. At the time they put a positive spin on it by emphasizing "long duration." That's not really an advantage, though. You can just discharge a high-rate-capable battery slower for long duration applications. If the price is right, long duration is just fine. One week of storage to get through a spell of cloudy weather or poor wind conditions is quite useful. It doesn’t obviate the need for daily storage.
- Meandering 5y agoThis is interesting... I hope they can make it feasible in the long run. There is another interesting application for this oxidation phenomenon.[1] They burn iron dust to create a C02-free furnace. Imagine replacing coal with iron in concrete plants... [1] https://newatlas.com/energy/bavarian-brewery-carbon-free-renewable-iron-fuel/ https://newatlas.com/energy/bavarian-brewery-carbon-free-ren...
- yissp 5y agoIs iron abundant enough for this to scale? Maybe this could kickstart the asteroid mining industry.
- ummonk 5y agoThe earth is made out of iron. There is no point in mining it in space, and regardless anything mines in space would be far too expensive for a use like this, which is why the main prospects for asteroid mining are precious metals.
- incompatible 5y agoYes, iron ore is mined in massive quantities in Western Australia at a cost in the order of $100 per ton.
- sbennettmcleish 5y agoYes, we're not gonna run out. WA ships nearly a billion tons/yr.
- montecarl 5y agoIron is the 4th most abundant element in Earth's crust. There are almost 3000 times more iron atoms than lithium atoms.
- Meandering 5y agoYou would use a fixed amount of iron and recycle it. It's not like you need "fresh" iron for every use.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- mackman 5y agoMore information in this article: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-9814873/Scientists-develop-iron-air-battery-stores-electricity-days.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-9814873/Scie...
- tiddelypom 5y agoAlso this one: https://www.wsj.com/articles/startup-claims-breakthrough-in-long-duration-batteries-11626946330 https://www.wsj.com/articles/startup-claims-breakthrough-in-... (I work at Form fyi)
- philipkglass 5y agoAm I correct that the company has improved the achievable C-rate since the May 2020 announcement of a 1MW/150MWh demonstration project? Are there any publicly available documents about the chemistry, or how the product compares with e.g. the ESS Inc. iron flow battery? https://essinc.com/iron-flow-chemistry/ https://essinc.com/iron-flow-chemistry/
- tiddelypom 5y agoThis is what we're saying publicly about the chemistry: https://formenergy.com/technology/battery-technology/ https://formenergy.com/technology/battery-technology/
- tiddelypom 5y agoNot sure where that article got the 300MW number, the GRE project is on track for the original size.
- epistasis 5y agoMy biggest concern is round trip efficiency, as other iron chemistries are only around 50%, which severely limits arbitrage opportunities: https://www.alexhsain.org/blog/ironair https://www.alexhsain.org/blog/ironair This could be super useful for all sorts of backup situations, from homes to data centers to hospitals. And once they are installed generally, they can be combined together as a virtual power plant and start partially paying for themselves.
- jagger27 5y agoIt would still be useful at night if paired with solar that produces more than the peek demand during the day.
- jeffbee 5y agoNobody cares about cycle efficiency when the inputs are free, which they are.
- epistasis 5y agoThe design of the energy markets will determine how free energy can be, as well as if there are any of the arbitrage opportunities I talked about. The round trip efficiency of hydrogen is already something of a concern for grid backup power, as far as I know, ans that's only slightly less than 50%. As storage costs decrease, those moments in time when there's oversupply of energy from solar and wind will become shorter and fewer. And (at least to me) it's really unclear what market designs will be viable if we were to have, say, 3x-5x oversupply of energy capacity so that renewables' minimums still meet our needs, and what new energy uses people will come up with when the can by intermittent energy for half a cent a kWh or something.
- jeffbee 5y agoI think you're missing the forest for the trees. The surplus we are going to have of renewable power is going to be huge. We are going to build way more than we need for peak grid demand, because we are going to need as much as we can get our hands on for direct air carbon capture. Our peak electric facilities are going to be phenomenally large, and the storage we need to cover the overnight grid is going to be a very minor cost component by comparison.
- jeffbee 5y agoSo, the article commits a pretty large error by describing this as the cheapest energy storage. This advance, even if we take a corporate press release at face value, only brings the cost down the the level of compressed gas storage. It's cheaper than lithium-ion but battery storage project costs, like most other utility projects, are dominated by infrastructure, land, regulatory costs, inverters, etc.
- iseanstevens 5y agoAny sources to site?
- jeffbee 5y agoAnnualized Cost and LCOE by Energy Storage Technology and Year, from https://www.pnnl.gov/ESGC-cost-performance https://www.pnnl.gov/ESGC-cost-performance
- exabrial 5y agoWhy would it? The culture on the west coast does not understand consent. The believe everyone is opted into to having their stuff shared, sold, and spread around by default, not the other way around.
- tiddelypom 5y agoWish I could answer more questions, but honestly the best way to learn more about our battery is to get involved! In addition to all the roles you'd expect on hardware and operations, Form also has openings on the software team (full stack, data eng, data platform). https://jobs.lever.co/formenergy https://jobs.lever.co/formenergy
- foobiekr 5y agoI really despise how these job posting sites consistently refuse to have return links to the company itself. Why does the icon on this page not go back to your corporate site? It's maddening.
- tiddelypom 5y agoAck yeah that's annoying. Here you go: https://formenergy.com/ https://formenergy.com/
- neonate 5y agoMuch longer WSJ article: https://archive.is/2I7aq https://archive.is/2I7aq
- Twirrim 5y agoThe main thing of interest (to me anyway) that seems to be missing from the articles I can see on this is references to energy density. Is it equivalent to Lithium Ion? Better? Worse? There's some tantalising research from a few years ago that suggests it could get way better energy density, but the same comes up frequently with battery technology.
- giantg2 5y agoI don't know the specifics about their iron based battery. However, the concept of iron based batteries have existed for some time and the energy densities are pretty low. My guess is that will be the case here since they are targeting grid storage rather than vehicles or electronics.
- Hypx_ 5y agoHydrogen-air batteries already exist and work extremely well. I think we are approaching the end of people seriously trying to make a new novel type of metal-air battery. Stuff like these are probably the last of its kind. BTW, hydrogen-air battery = hydrogen fuel cell, if you didn't realize that.
- adrian_b 5y agoThe efficiency of a complete cycle of storing then retrieving energy into hydrogen is quite low and there are thermodynamic reasons (due to the phase changes between liquid and gas) that limit the achievable efficiency. Hydrogen might be a possible choice when high energy per mass or power per mass is desired, but it is a very bad choice for the purpose of this new iron-air battery, i.e. stationary storage with very high energy capacity and very low cost. Iron-air might indeed be the best choice for medium-time energy storage, with low cost and good full-cycle efficiency. For very long energy storage times, e.g. years, synthetic hydrocarbons would be preferable to hydrogen, due to much easier storage and handling.
- Hypx_ 5y agoAll metal-air batteries have similar thermodynamic properties. If you can make a iron-air battery with good efficiency, than you can make a hydrogen-air battery with good efficiency too. Since water is significantly more available than just about any other material, hydrogen-air cells should be the ideal battery for anything that isn't volume limited. Which is frankly a lot of cases. Unless there's some specific need for an iron-air battery where hydrogen-air can't be used, it's hard to conceive of a situation where we wouldn't use hydrogen-air. Synthetic hydrocarbons are basically extensions of hydrogen electrochemistry. You are just adding carbon to the hydrogen made with the electrolysis step of a hydrogen-air battery. It's even possible to make a hydrocarbon-air cell such as direct-alcohol fuel cells or solid oxide fuel cells.
- adrian_b 5y agoYou are right about metal-air batteries, but IIRC hydrogen-air ideal efficiency is still significantly lower than the ideal efficiency for carbon-air (using fuel cells with solid carbon) or metal-air batteries. You are also right about synthetic hydrocarbons. The extra hydrocarbon synthesis step lowers the total efficiency, compared with using hydrogen. Nevertheless, the lower efficiency is more than compensated by the simpler methods used for storage and handling, which require much less expensive materials and a much lower volume and total mass. The benefits of using hydrocarbons for long-term energy storage have been amply demonstrated by the living beings that have been using this method for billions of years, many of which can easily achieve an autonomy of months without eating, while doing activities that would make a present-time robot using batteries inoperational after a few hours at most.
- Robotbeat 5y agoA little annoying they don’t mention cost per kWh, just “1/10th of lithium ion” which could mean almost anything. If you say lithium ion costs $1000/kWh (not far from short-lived grid lithium ion or residential), then maybe they’re $100/kWh. Or perhaps they’re using $125/kWh and they’re really $12.50/kWh. Also, working for 150 hours is no great feat. Just means they undersized the inverter and power electronics. If you did that with lithium ion, you’d also have much lower cost per kWh (for small systems with only an hour or two, the inverter could be half the cost or more), so going to 150 hours would also reduce costs by a lot as you’d be closer to the raw cell price. I suspect that unless there’s a chemical reason why they have to discharge over many days, any real system is likely to be more like 12-24 hours as you’d be wasting the usefulness of the battery by picking an impractically small inverter. Here’s hoping it’s actually a huge cell cost reduction while keeping decent round trip efficiency and cycle life.
- DeRock 5y agoThere’s more details in the WSJ article: https://archive.is/2I7aq https://archive.is/2I7aq $6/kWh raw materials, or $20/kWh for full system
- nazrulmum10 5y agoThis battery can be used continuously over a multi-day period and will enable a reliable, secure, and fully renewable electric grid year-round,” said Form Energy. Or as Greg Lydkovsky, global head of R&D at steel giant ArcelorMittal — Form Energy’s latest investor — put it, the technology “holds exciting potential to overcome the intermittent supply of renewable energy”. Form Energy president and chief operating officer Ted Wiley said: “We’ve completed the science, what’s left to do is scale up from lab-scale prototypes to grid-scale power plants. “[At full production], the modules will produce electricity for one-tenth the cost of any technology available today for grid storage.” The battery is said to work through “reversible oxidation of iron”. In discharge mode, thousands of tiny iron pellets are exposed to the air, which makes them rust (ie, the iron turning to iron oxide). When the system is charged with an electric current, the oxygen in the rust is removed, and it reverts back to iron. Wiley said that a 300MW “pilot” project for Minnesota-based Great River Energy will be commissioned in 2023.
- ksec 5y agoLet's just assume this works as advertise, at less than 1/10th the cost of lithium-ion. And we can scale it to practically infinity. And available by 2023. What is left missing in the big picture for 100% clean, and renewable energy? As far as I can tell, Solar and Wind has already achieved cost/Wh lowered than all other form of energy and has a decent roadmap to further drive down the cost by another 50 - 60%. Or are there some other puzzles we dont know? Or if Iron Battery works, and this will be "it" ?
- Jweb_Guru 5y agoStorage is the last big scientific puzzle for doing it completely economically, yes. Thereafter it's "just" a matter of political will.
- ksec 5y agoI was under the impression, let say inclusive of Storage, if Clean and Renewable energy are one third of the cost of Coal Nuclear or Gas. Then the incentive and market force will be so great no political will could stop it?
- philipkglass 5y agoAbundant, inexpensive storage plus inexpensive renewable electricity would mean one big problem solved. There are still a lot of non-electrical sources of emissions that still need to be addressed: - Steel production - Ammonia production - Organic chemicals production (polymers, lubricants, solvents...) - Electrification of transport (world car and truck fleet is still 99% combustion powered, and these iron batteries aren't the right kind for mobile usage.) - Synthetic fuel production for applications that can't use batteries, like rockets and trans-Atlantic passengrer flights. - Cement production, which currently releases large amounts of CO2 from fossil combustion and from the chemical transformation of limestone.
- microdrum 5y agoEnovix now has a 100% silicon anode battery in actual production. Looks like they will win the race. Former IBM / FormFactor probe card guys. Factory in Fremont California. From last week: https://vimeo.com/575951266 https://vimeo.com/575951266