We have been expecting Australians to come up with something new by way of battery storage for a while. That’s because they have been rolling out new solar and wind projects at a rate faster than most. Especially in South Australia with its huge lithium battery sets. However its latest project appears to be the first working thermal battery ever. This could even outpace lithium it seems
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Disruptive SEO Serge Bondarenko and COO Graham Warburton told New Atlas their thermal battery will last ‘at least 20 years’. Moreover, ‘it can store six times more energy than lithium-ion batteries per volume, for 60-80 percent of the price.
If that’s the case then we could be on the verge of a breakthrough that could disrupt battery storage completely. Furthermore their device is ‘modular’ and therefore able to accept energy from any source including renewables, fossil and grid. It uses this energy to heat and melt silicon inside containments to above 1,400° C /2,550° F. ‘Whenever that energy is required, it’s pulled out with a heat engine’ New Atlas explains.
Details Are Scanty How Would This Work in Practice
New Atlas is silent exactly how the heat would convert back to electricity. Although no doubt this would involve some form of thermal generator. We gather a 1.2 megawatt-hour thermal battery would fit into a 20 ft. container including ‘all input and output electronics’.
The battery is also scalable from 5 kilowatts upwards with a run time of approximately 48 hours. It can also charge and discharge simultaneously. “Molten silicon just doesn’t degrade like lithium does,” says Serge Bondarenko. “That’s a chemical process, ours is simply phase-change with heat.
“In fact, it appears silicon even gets better at storing heat after each cycle. And if you do need to decommission our thermal battery, it’s 100 percent recyclable. It simply doesn’t create the environmental problems lithium does.”
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Preview Image: A Better and Greener Way to Generate Electricity
