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The void between today’s electric grid and one delivering renewable energy day after day is the space where an effective storage battery should be—specifically, a cost-effective battery that can hold energy for more than a few hours at a time without it ebbing away.
Form Energy, a Massachusetts start-up, claims to have a battery that fills that space.
Specifically, the company has created a new version of an iron-air battery, a promising technology that has long been beset by various technical difficulties.
Form’s new version of the battery holds thousands of tiny iron pellets that rust when exposed to oxygen; then the pellets “de-rust” and revert back to iron when oxygen is removed from their storage chamber.
This process of mechanical inhaling and exhaling charges, then discharges, the battery.
While the cost of cobalt, lithium, manganese, and nickel to make a lithium-ion battery can be as high as $80 per kilowatt-hour of storage capacity, Form’s iron only costs about $6 at today’s prices.
The battery can hold its charge for as long as 150 hours, or about six days, long enough to keep electricity flowing to homes and businesses during all but the longest power outages.
The long duration is key: Form’s battery could smooth out the ups and downs of power generated by sun and wind, enabling the electric grid to deliver a steady supply of renewable energy through cloudy or still days.
Each cell of a Form battery consists of a cube three feet on a side. Conceivably, thousands of the cells could be wired together, probably in a warehouse or similar shelter, to power entire towns.
Mateo Jaramillo, Form’s CEO, worked at Tesla, where he was a force in creating the company’s Powerwall battery. Among its backers, his new company counts Breakthrough Energy Ventures, a fund created by Bill Gates that includes Jeff Bezos as an investor.
Form recently announced a $200-million funding round, led by ArcelorMittal, a European conglomerate that is one of the world’s leading iron mining and steel production companies.
Form is building a one-megawatt battery array that will be installed and tested as a demonstration at a Minnesota electric company in 2023.
TRENDPOST: If Form’s battery proves out, it removes the last, large remaining barrier to an electric grid that can liberate itself from fossil fuels.