Hello Readers,
Today when I turned on my computer, I stumbled upon quite a surprise. One of the top headlines at the New York Times was all about batteries! Upon a quick search, I also found a similar article by Forbes that strips the issue down to the bare bones, no political commentary.
It turns out, the big news in an announcement by A123, which has already developed one of the first - if not only - commercially available utility scale energy storage units on the market, about a new Lithium-Ion battery technology called Nanophosphate EXT.
According to the manufacturer, the main benefit of Nanophosphate EXT will be its ability to operate in a wider temperature range with less control equipment required to maintain the batteries. While this may not sound like much, it could mean a lot for electric vehicle and renewable energy technologies.
For electric vehicles, it will mean a lighter-weight, more durable Li-ion battery. Think of a battery that allows the vehicle to go further and lasts the entire functional life of the average car today.
Although, it is not mentioned anywhere, this breakthrough could also have a significant impact on the cost, durability, and useful temperature range of remote (non-grid) renewable energy generation systems, such as solar photovoltaic systems that rely on a battery bank. With current battery technologies, system owners need to be especially careful when choosing the size of the battery bank attached to a remote energy system.
With typical lead-acid batteries (such as those normally used in non-electric vehicles and off-grid renewable systems), the characteristics of a battery vary greatly with the temperature. As a result, battery banks typically need to be over-sized to allow for extremely cold temperatures, when batteries have a diminished capacity to store energy. Additionally, typical lead-acid batteries have a limited 'cycle life', i.e. the amount of useful energy that the battery can store quickly decreases based on the number of times the battery is fully discharged and then fully recharged.
By comparison, current Li-ion batteries have a longer cycle life than lead-acid batteries, but they also require a lot of expensive, non-energy storing, control equipment in them to ensure stability (e.g. not catching on fire) and extend the life of the battery. However, according to A123, the new Nanophosphate EXT Li-ion battery, will require less of that equipment (think less expense) to operate safely AND be able to store more energy at lower temperatures AND have a longer cycle life.
So if A123 is able to bring this technology to market, it could be a game changer not only for electronic goods like laptops, but it could also impact energy storage in pretty much every area: regular vehicles, electric vehicles, remote renewable systems, and perhaps even large utility-scale renewable projects (see: the Background section of my Dissertation).
We shall have to wait and see!
Charged-ly,
Sean
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