Expectation: it doesn’t work well at all
Result: It kinda works?
It sounds like it works really well. The physical size does sound quite large, but I’m not sure how that compares against other types of batteries.
It probably doesn’t matter. This type of battery is not all that interesting for things like electric cars, rather more so for things like grid energy storage on a massive scale. Think 1000s of these in a large building, getting charged during the day with excess solar energy, releasing it into the grid at night. Stuff like this is what has been missing to make even better use of renewables.
How about one of those in your basement or shack to charge your car overnight?
Yeah that’s one thing I think doesn’t get much attention. We actually have a lot of solar in some major countries. In many areas, there’s too much and it’s wasted right now. The efficiency of the grid’s solar intake and distribution is often times worse than the solar panel efficiency themselves. If we can store and distribute that excess with the same efficiency of the panels, it would be a huge stress relief on many systems.
Wow, it’s hard to know just how impactful this will be, but it sounds like they’ve got something here.
its batteries which it said avoid using metals such as lithium, cobalt, graphite and copper, providing a cost reduction of up to 40% compared to lithium-ion batteries.
Altech said its batteries are completely fire and explosion proof, have a life span of more than 15 years and operate in all but the most extreme conditions.
That’s huge, especially the fire and explosion proof part.
its why their main benefit is cost and safety. for power storage in a standing field or wall density isnt as important compared to for mobile usages (EVs) so sodium based batteries make more sense.
There’s still room in car design for bigger batteries too. Could be used in cheaper electric cars with a less optimal power to weight ratio than LiFePO batteries would yield.
not saying they wont be used of course, just less optimal because the size and characteristics of the battery may be less ideal. for example, while salt ion batteries wear level decreases at a slower rate than Lithium ion based batteries, when salt ion batteries go bad, they suddenly stop working (e.g goes from a wear level of say like 60% to almost immediately zero) which is not the ideal situation to be in
Actually exciting battery tech that isn’t just fluff. They actually built the thing and tested it, rather than it being a theoretical, not-easily-produced thing and it worked.
As others have said, this is for grid-scale and not EVs, but still exceptional progress and very important for energy storage.
As others have said, this is for grid-scale and not EVs, but still exceptional progress and very important for energy storage.
I would argue that grid-scale energy storage is even more important than EV needs today.
Grid scale batteries allow for better security by distributing storage across the network and lets us store renewable energy from peak hours.
Cheap grid storage will be a game changer
And it mitigates the current red herring of the anti-solar groups complaining that solar “generates too much electricity during the day, and not enough at night”.
With an effective and balanced grid storage system across the country, we can recharge the batteries during the day and then use the power at night.
I wouldn’t write off EV usage too quickly. The lithium batteries in EVs right now are around 160Wh/kg. The sodium batteries coming out of production lines now are about the same, but are also substantially cheaper, safer, and built out of more abundant materials.
Yes, if you compare them to top of the line lithium batteries coming out of assembly lines now, they don’t look as good, but those batteries aren’t in actual cars yet. It’s very likely that we’ll see cheap EVs running sodium batteries, and they’ll often be good enough. We need more charge stations more than we need better batteries (as far as EVs go).
Indeed awesome. Sadly no words about recycling such a battery, though it sounds like it should be fairly recyclable.
Said, let me guess, Altech.
