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I've been watching ESS (they make a non-toxic iron flow battery system) for years and been really frustrated that they have made essentially zero progress deplo

I've been watching ESS (they make a non-toxic iron flow battery system) for years and been really frustrated that they have made essentially zero progress deploying the technology, with less than half a dozen deployments. The technology looks great, but they seem annoyingly incompetent at marketing/selling their product...or are just holding out for "whale" customers, refusing to work with anyone except microgrid (ie college campus) and utility scale customers. So many promising products and technologies die because the inventors/developers hold out for huge customers while ignoring the huge demand from retail/small/medium corp customers. "We won't talk to anyone except corporations with deep pockets. Once we find a couple of those, we'll be filthy stinking rich!" instead of "if we sell the components at a price that undercuts LiFePO4, we'll have as many customers as we can handle, and there's plenty of margin for distributors and retailers, so we don't have to be B2C."

hlieberman 2y ago
The author actually talks about ESS in a comment to the linked blog post from the article. Apparently their battery generates a ton of H_2 that needs to be managed. That could easily be the sort of thing that only is possible/realistic at large scales, thus eliminating sizing the battery down indirectly. https://chemisting.com/2024/03/15/an-open-source-diy-flow-battery/ https://chemisting.com/2024/03/15/an-open-source-diy-flow-ba...
- kragen 2y ago
  you can just vent h2 to the atmosphere
  - jhayward 2y ago
    Your local fire department will want to very closely inspect your explosive materials handling and safety procedures. Think about what big banks of lead-acid batteries have to do, and google the pictures of battery rooms with their roof blown to bits.
    - kragen 2y ago
      i'm familiar with the destructive power and unpredictable nature of hydrogen detonations, yes ;) but that's what happens when you don't vent the hydrogen to the atmosphere
      - Qwertious 2y ago
        Yes, but improperly venting the hydrogen is "not venting hydrogen" but looks like venting the hydrogen unless closely inspected.
        kragen 2y ago
        you can do it in ways that are really obvious, though only to someone who knows the order of magnitude of hydrogen that could be produced
  - hlieberman 2y ago
    It doesn't work so easily; if you do that, the battery itself will fall apart because of deposition of the iron. See: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1149/1945-7111/abcf50/pdf https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1149/1945-7111/abcf50/...
    - kragen 2y ago
      thanks! so the rest of the thread here is sort of beside the point
- danielfp248 2y ago
  I am the author of the blog. The Zn/I chemistry actually generates very little H2, so that's not a problem in our current configuration.
jillesvangurp 2y ago
The issue is actually with investors not investing and not with the companies not innovating. A lot of promising technology simply doesn't get funded. So it gets stuck in the R&D pipeline. Without funding, companies are struggling to get enough cash and have to limit their ambition level. For example by just working with a handful of customers. Or by building a tiny factory that merely prove technical feasibility instead of a bigger one that would prove the business case as well as the technology benefits in terms of cost. Big battery factories are expensive and risky. And most battery tech doesn't really get profitable until you have a big factory and a few years of optimization. The price of the first batteries is generally really high and it can take years to get there. This has been a problem with battery tech in particular where mostly companies in the US or Europe don't get much funding for new tech and where China actually seems to be doing a bit better. Which is why sodium batteries are shipping in China (CATL) and sort of stuck in R&D for many years elsewhere. With flow batteries, the technology is kind of proven at this point. They work, they exist, etc. What's left to prove is the price point: can it be done cheaply? Everything seems to suggest yes. But proving that is going to require scaling production and a massive amount of investment to get that going. Think billions, not millions. Small retail customers are not helpful here because those don't pay until after the factory gets built and starts shipping product. Demand is never the issue. It's doing the leg work to get to the promised price point at which that demand exists. That requires investment.
kirksmith 2y ago
I agree... part of that frustration is why we're working on this project! See my short post on "Why you can't buy a flow battery today" https://dualpower.supply/posts/motivation-OSHW-RFB/ https://dualpower.supply/posts/motivation-OSHW-RFB/
danielfp248 2y ago
We hope to go from these low cost kits to home kits, to commercial kits. Out technology will always be open source. We hear you and we want to get there. We definitely want to live good lives - and have those who work with us have good lives too - but we really don't care about being rich. We are going to start a work coop soon to build and sell the educational kits, as soon as we finish with the initial development. We also have a Hardware X paper coming, showing the initial results of the DIY kit. Things are slowly coming together, but it takes a while since we're literally doing these experiments in our houses.

hlieberman 2y ago

The author actually talks about ESS in a comment to the linked blog post from the article. Apparently their battery generates a ton of H_2 that needs to be managed. That could easily be the sort of thing that only is possible/realistic at large scales, thus eliminating sizing the battery down indirectly. https://chemisting.com/2024/03/15/an-open-source-diy-flow-battery/ https://chemisting.com/2024/03/15/an-open-source-diy-flow-ba...

kragen 2y ago
you can just vent h2 to the atmosphere
- jhayward 2y ago
  Your local fire department will want to very closely inspect your explosive materials handling and safety procedures. Think about what big banks of lead-acid batteries have to do, and google the pictures of battery rooms with their roof blown to bits.
  - kragen 2y ago
    i'm familiar with the destructive power and unpredictable nature of hydrogen detonations, yes ;) but that's what happens when you don't vent the hydrogen to the atmosphere
    - Qwertious 2y ago
      Yes, but improperly venting the hydrogen is "not venting hydrogen" but looks like venting the hydrogen unless closely inspected.
      - kragen 2y ago
        you can do it in ways that are really obvious, though only to someone who knows the order of magnitude of hydrogen that could be produced
- hlieberman 2y ago
  It doesn't work so easily; if you do that, the battery itself will fall apart because of deposition of the iron. See: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1149/1945-7111/abcf50/pdf https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1149/1945-7111/abcf50/...
  - kragen 2y ago
    thanks! so the rest of the thread here is sort of beside the point
danielfp248 2y ago
I am the author of the blog. The Zn/I chemistry actually generates very little H2, so that's not a problem in our current configuration.

jillesvangurp 2y ago

The issue is actually with investors not investing and not with the companies not innovating. A lot of promising technology simply doesn't get funded. So it gets stuck in the R&D pipeline. Without funding, companies are struggling to get enough cash and have to limit their ambition level. For example by just working with a handful of customers. Or by building a tiny factory that merely prove technical feasibility instead of a bigger one that would prove the business case as well as the technology benefits in terms of cost. Big battery factories are expensive and risky. And most battery tech doesn't really get profitable until you have a big factory and a few years of optimization. The price of the first batteries is generally really high and it can take years to get there. This has been a problem with battery tech in particular where mostly companies in the US or Europe don't get much funding for new tech and where China actually seems to be doing a bit better. Which is why sodium batteries are shipping in China (CATL) and sort of stuck in R&D for many years elsewhere. With flow batteries, the technology is kind of proven at this point. They work, they exist, etc. What's left to prove is the price point: can it be done cheaply? Everything seems to suggest yes. But proving that is going to require scaling production and a massive amount of investment to get that going. Think billions, not millions. Small retail customers are not helpful here because those don't pay until after the factory gets built and starts shipping product. Demand is never the issue. It's doing the leg work to get to the promised price point at which that demand exists. That requires investment.

kirksmith 2y ago

I agree... part of that frustration is why we're working on this project! See my short post on "Why you can't buy a flow battery today" https://dualpower.supply/posts/motivation-OSHW-RFB/ https://dualpower.supply/posts/motivation-OSHW-RFB/

danielfp248 2y ago

We hope to go from these low cost kits to home kits, to commercial kits. Out technology will always be open source. We hear you and we want to get there. We definitely want to live good lives - and have those who work with us have good lives too - but we really don't care about being rich. We are going to start a work coop soon to build and sell the educational kits, as soon as we finish with the initial development. We also have a Hardware X paper coming, showing the initial results of the DIY kit. Things are slowly coming together, but it takes a while since we're literally doing these experiments in our houses.