Redox shuttle provides highest overcharge protection for certain cathodes

 

Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory have patented an extremely stable, 4-Volt redox shuttle molecule that provides overcharge protection for lithium-ion batteries containing lithium–iron-phosphate based cathodes across hundreds of charging cycles.

Overcharge is a major safety concern for Li-ion batteries because it could cause thermal runaway, a concern for large batteries – such as those used for transportation and storage applications – because they contain a large amount of active material.

“When a battery pack is being charged, each cell in the pack may have varying levels of charge,” said Argonne materials scientist Khalil Amine, who leads the research group that developed the shuttle. “Overcharge generally occurs when a current is forced through a battery and the charge that is delivered exceeds the charge-storing capacity of the battery, which can damage the entire battery.”

Modern, well-designed batteries prevent overcharge from occurring through use of external battery monitoring and control systems that function both at the cell and battery level. This new material offers a tool for addressing some of the concerns associated with overcharge using an approach that functions inside each cell.

“The new redox shuttle, known as 2,5-di-tert-butyl-1,4-bis(2-methoxyethoxy)benzene or DBBB, works by halting the charging process of individual cells as they come to a full state of charge,” Amine said. “Being able to discontinue the charging process on a cell-by-cell basis protects the entire battery pack by preventing individual cells from overcharging.”

DBBB, which dissolves in the electrolyte, works by moving back and forth from the anode and cathode in place of the Li-ion, Amine explained. The shuttle technology achieved up to 300 cycled overcharges in the lab. The shuttle is undergoing validation test by industry, and the results to date are very encouraging, he said.

Researchers in Argonne’s Advanced Battery Materials Synthesis and Manufacturing Research & Development Program have already scaled up production of DBBB to 1.5 kilograms from the sub-gram amounts Amine’s group required for bench-scale research and development. The larger amount of the redox shuttle material is needed by companies that want to test the material for possible commercialization. The stability and repeated long-term overcharge cycling capability of this new shuttle molecule was demonstrated by Amine and his Argonne colleagues Zhengcheng Zhang, Lu Zhang and Wei Weng.

The redox shuttle is part of a suite of advanced battery materials developed by scientists at Argonne. The lab’s Advanced Battery Materials Synthesis and Manufacturing R&D Program focuses on scalable-process R&D to produce advanced battery materials in sufficient quantity for industrial testing. This work is intended to support domestic battery manufacturing and to enable the transition of new materials and technology to the market.
Argonne
www.Anl.gov

Big dry-cell battery ready for use with wind farms and solar projects

Renewable energy projects often cannot consistently deliver electricity so some of the power must be stored, often in larger batteries. For example, the Notrees wind project will be the largest that uses a battery backup, and more such projects are in the pipeline.

“We have a few large projects awaiting to be announced later this year or into next year that are related to either renewable integration on a large-scale or renewable integration under challenging transmission and distribution circumstances,” said Xtreme Power CEO Carlos Coe. “Industry observers are seeing increasing use of storage alongside renewable assets, and in areas where the grid system is more constrained and isolated, such as Hawaii. A 30-MW wind project there went into operation recently using a 15-MW storage system from Xtreme. Duke won in November 2009 a $22 million U.S. Energy Department grant for a large-scale battery storage system at the Notrees project. Electricity from Notrees is sold to Bentonville, Arkansas- based Wal-Mart Stores Inc.

Xtreme Power
http://www.xtremepower.com/

Custom batteries for wind turbines

A global research and battery manufacturer has introduced a special series of batteries for wind turbines. The LC-WTV and LC-WTP series of batteries are the latest iteration of Panasonic’s Valve-Regulated Lead Acid (VRLA) technology adapted to the specific and demanding needs of wind turbine applications.“These customized batteries provide superior performance in the tough environment of wind turbine energy systems. It continues our commitment to productive ‘green technologies’,” notes Dennis Malec, Senior Applications Engineer at Panasonic Industrial Company. Analysts project that total installed wind generating capacity, buoyed by renewable energy standards and other pro-wind policies, including those contained in economic stimulus packages in the United States, China, and elsewhere, will more than double by 2013.

Four new 12V batteries for blade pitch drives are key to Panasonic’s initial offering to this dynamic market. All feature flame-retardant cases of UL94V-0 resin. In more detail:

• The LC-WTV127R2 is a 7.2Ah VRLA battery while the LC-WTV1212 is a 12Ah VRLA unit. Their expected life is 5 years at 20°C and 3 years at 25°C based on a weekly discharge cycle of max 15 seconds•

 The LC-WTP127r2 is a 7.2Ah VRLA battery with an expected life of 10 years at 20°C and 5 years at 25°C based on a weekly discharge cycle of max 15 seconds.

• The LC-WTP1212 is a 12Ah VRLA version with the same life expectancies as the WTP127r2.

Panasonic Industrial Co.
www.panasonic.com/batteries

Think ultracapacitors to improve or replace batteries

Although there is a growing market for environmentally sensitive energy production, key challenges to widespread adoption remain. Among the most significant is creating consistent, reliable stores of energy from unpredictable natural resources such as solar and wind power. In the wind turbine market in particular, variable weather conditions create a demand for an energy storage system that can respond quickly regardless of conditions. In many cases today, the storage system is a battery. This must change if the market for wind-generated power is to fulfill its potential for growth.

Challenged by wind
Most wind turbines use three rotor blades to spin generators. The pitch of these blades can be quickly adjusted to respond to current wind conditions and optimize the output power. Variable winds create challenges to maximizing energy output because they also creates waste. The energy storage frequently used is sized to meet the highest possible power demands, even when those periods occur briefly and sporadically.

 

Several issues emerge when wind turbines use batteries to store emergency power. First, batteries struggle under moments of high peak power and perform poorly in low temperatures. In extreme conditions, a battery’s operating life is extremely limited, creating a situation in which maintenance crews must frequently swap out components under potentially dangerous conditions. Worse yet, batteries do a poor job delivering frequent, short power boosts wind turbines need to make rapid rotor-blade adjustments under changing conditions.

Ultracapacitors provide a solution because they are more reliable over a wide temperature range. These power storage devices reduce overall system size and have a far longer lifespan than batteries, making them significantly more cost-effective. As the wind market grows, ultracapacitors will become an increasingly important ingredient in wind-generated power production.

Growth in the wind market
Wind-turbine installations worldwide have remained relatively flat over the past two years, with new installed capacity averaging 38 GW. Estimates for new installed capacity from 2010 to 2015 suggest a rebound in growth with new cumulative installations of 236 GW. Assuming an average turbine size of 2 MW, the power figure translates to 118,000 newly installed turbines through 2015. The trend in these new wind turbines will favor ultracapacitors for several reasons.

For example, pitch control on each blade ensures best position for efficient use of the wind speed regarding performance and safety. Engineers adjust blade pitch either mechanically or electrically. Mechanical control through hydraulics raises concerns for reliability, necessitating undesirable maintenance aspects. Electric control systems replace some mechanical devices with more reliable electric systems. At issue for the electric control method is the implementation of battery-based backup systems. The maintenance requirements for batteries often clouds the perceived maintenance advantage of electrical systems over hydraulic versions.

In the last few years, designs for backup have included ultracapacitors rather than batteries. With more than 14,000 turbine installations, ultracapacitors have provided maintenance-free operation along with performance advantages and a longer life relative to batteries in extreme environments. As a result, ultracapacitors let electric pitch-control systems capitalize on their inherent reliability advantages.

Present market estimates are that 60% of newly installed turbine systems use electric pitch controls. The market share should continue to expand as more new turbine developments focus on electric-control systems. With ultracapacitors as a driver for such market shifts, it’s useful to take a detailed look at ultracapacitor performance.

An ultracap primer
Ultracapicators have a higher power density than standard capacitors. What differentiates ultracapacitors from their traditional counterparts, electrolytic capacitors, is their higher energy density, allowing them to store more energy in a small package. The capacitors most design engineers are familiar with have short time constants. This means their voltage cycles quickly, whereas ultracapacitor arrays have time constants of the order of tens of seconds to minutes. The large capacitance and   low frequency time constants allow using ultracapacitors in applications that have not been practical or economical for conventional capacitors.

Because ultracapacitors are still rather new to the electronics industry, few people are familiar with how to use them. The goal of this article is to familiarize people with the properties of ultracapacitors and suggest applications for which they are well suited.

Ultracapacitors have a maximum cell voltage of 2.7V, so they must be connected in series to reach a required working voltage. With any identical capacitors, the capacitance of a series array decreases as they are connected in series, but the working voltage increases by the rated voltage of each additional cell. Replacing a six-cell lead-acid battery requires six ultracapacitors, because a 12-V battery is actually charged to 14.4V. If five ultracapacitors were used, the maximum voltage across each cell would be 14.4V/ 5 = 2.88V, which would cause premature cell failure. At higher-voltage-battery configurations, it is possible to have slightly fewer ultracapacitor cells than lead-acid cells. But, in general, the number of ultracapacitor cells equals the number of lead-acid cells when directly connected in parallel with the battery. Because there is a minimum of six cells required and 250F (Farads) is the minimum capacitance, the cell capacitance has to be at least 6 x 250F, or about 1,500F. Several manufacturers, including Ioxus Inc, offer several different sizes of ultracapacitors close to this capacitance.

Consider a 2,000F prismatic cell. The ESR (Equivalent Series Resistance) specified for these cells is 0.0006 Ohm/cell, resulting in a total ESR of 0.0036 Ohms.

In general, use of an ultracapacitor in combination with a battery is an excellent way to increase overall power density of the source and decrease strain on the battery. In addition, a smaller battery could be used because the available power of the hybrid power source is more than required. In any case, when energy storage requires high-peak power, it is likely an ultracapacitor will be useful.

Benefits versus batteries
Ultracapacitors are similar to traditional film capacitors because their energy storage is based on surface area electrostatic- charge accumulation at the positive and negative plates. Highly porous electrodes in ultracapacitors allow a significant charge accumulation in comparison to traditional capacitors. The release of energy in capacitors and ultracapacitors comes at high rates due to this loose-charge accumulation attraction. Resistance to the energy release is primarily driven by the resistivity of the electrolyte. In contrast, batteries rely on current flow between positive and negative plates through chemical reactions of plating and decomposition of the positive and negative plates. As such, the energy release or power capability of the technology is significantly reduced in comparison. Because chemical reactions are involved, rate kinetics also negatively impact power delivery at lower temperatures.

Ultracapacitors also have significant life advantages for the same reasons. Ultracapacitors have no plating or chemical reactions so there is no wear mechanism in the technology. Therefore, they tolerate millions of charge and discharge cycles with limited performance degradation. Any performance fade in the devices are predictable and easily monitored so any end- of-application life is easily predicted.

Battery life is not so easily predicted. In fact, the general practice is to replace batteries at specified intervals regardless of the actual battery health.

The accompanying table compares a few a key characteristics of batteries to ultracapacitors. Basic life-cycle costs can be generated based on these characteristics with additional maintenance cost considered.

Wind turbine maintenance is costly and potentially dangerous. One way to reduce maintenance is with newer technologies that create safer operating conditions. Supporting safer operation will be paramount as wind turbines are deployed in greater numbers. Part of that effort will require reducing the maintenance demand from energy storage. This is a cost issue as well. Generally, the cost of the maintenance event outweighs the cost of a new battery or ultracapacitor. This will be especially true in offshore turbines. At present, about 3 GW of turbines are installed worldwide. Experts project that more than 50 GW of offshore installations will occur through the end of the decade. These installations require the highest level of reliability for cost-effective turbine operations.

Demand for ultracapacitors in electrical pitch-control systems is growing as the market for wind turbines expands, and it’s easy to see why. Unlike batteries, ultracapacitors deliver a simple, long-lasting, cost-effective, and reliable means of storing energy and increasing the safety of modern wind turbines.

Brendan Andrews
Ioxus inc.
Oneonta, NY
www.ioxus.com

WPE

Hybrid power train drives this cool cat when wind cannot

A hybrid power train in the world’s largest plug-in, hybrid-electric sailboat – a 60-ft Tag Yachts catamaran, will let it run on wind-generated electricity stored in lithium-ion batteries. Christened Tang at her September 21 launching, the carbon-fiber cat is undergoing tests at Tag facilities in St. Francis Bay, South Africa. She’ll set sail later this year to her owner in Florida and will appear at the Miami sailboat show in February.

“This is a transformational combination of technologies,” says Dave Tether, CEO of Electric Marine Propulsion (EMP). “Our E Motion hybrid system converts wind and solar energy into a practical power source for boat motors and auxiliaries. And, International Battery’s lithium cells provide the lightweight, high-capacity storage that really lets us take advantage of it.”

The main renewable energy input to the large-format battery pack is electricity generated by wind power as the boat’s propellers spin in the wake, when under sail. The propellers turn the 18-kW propulsion motors, which become generators, and send electricity back to the batteries.

“The initial thrust and response when engaging forward is vastly better than anything experienced with standard diesel propulsion,” says Tim van der Steene, managing director of Tag Yachts. “It’s quiet, and the power is there instantly. It goes hand-in-hand with sailing, which is about moving in harmony with nature, quietly, without polluting the environment.”

When there’s not enough wind, twin 22-kilowatt diesel generators kick in for recharging, together or individually as needed. The generators, 144-volt dc units, recharge the batteries directly without the normal energy loss incurred through a charger.
The batteries also can be charged with a 144-volt charger that plugs into shore power. The charger handles a wide range of voltages and frequencies, a big advantage in out-of-the way ports with erratic electricity supplies.
“Using our large-format lithium prismatic cells as building blocks provides a battery with a high energy density and that means smaller footprints and lower weight,” says International Battery’s CEO Ake Almgren. “In addition, because the battery is made with an environmentally friendly, water-based manufacturing process, our batteries are right at home storing clean, renewable energy for this hybrid vessel and others to follow.”

Tang’s hybrid system includes twin E motion 18-kilowatt permanent-magnet motors and International Battery’s lithium cells configured into a 144-volt battery pack. The pack’s total energy capacity is a hefty 46 kilowatt-hours. That’s more than twice the usable capacity of an 8D battery pack – the largest conventional size carried with the E motion system. Yet the lithium pack weighs roughly 40% less.

This extra energy capacity lets the sailing yacht offer more amenities to passengers including a 37-in. flat screen TV, Bose entertainment system, LED lighting, café-size espresso machine, two refrigerator-freezers, dishwasher, microwave, conventional oven, gas or electrical burner top, washer-dryer, air-conditioning, and a water maker.

To keep the battery cells working at best levels, International Battery’s battery management system (BMS) actively balances the battery cells during charge and discharge. The BMS compares each individual cell and diverts current to or from the cells to bring all cells to an equal level.

Solving the use-it-or-lose-it wind energy problem

Examine a utility’s load curve over the course of a week and the trace looks like a roller-coaster. Demand for electric power peaks about 5 pm each day and declines to a low at about 2 am. Look closer and you see demand changing almost by the second. So there are two problems here that befuddle electric companies. One comes from having to deal with the large changes in demand as it grows and slackens throughout a 24 hour period.

The other is the almost second-by-second change to demand that leads to frequency variations. For instance, in brief periods when demand drops, generators may run fast so that frequency in the line rises over 60 Hz. And when loads come online, steam driven turbines slow a but and line frequency drops. This can play havoc with some customer equipment.

The wind industry offers a partial solution by providing some power during high demand periods. But this so-called peak shaving is not a perfect solution because even wind plants could be in a lull when power is needed. If there were a way to store the excess power, regardless of source, it would let wind plants put more turbines online for longer periods so boilers could throttle back. Short-term power storage would also let utilities really smooth out the power curves so line frequency stays closer to 60.00 Hz than it does at some periods.

A few applicants for these jobs include compressed air, flywheels, large batteries, and generating and storing hydrogen, reported on elsewhere in this magazine. Of course there are others such as fuel cells and ultra capaciators. The Electric Power Research Institute is looking into additional methods, but for the time being, those here appear the most promising.

Stimulus of compression

The Federal administration has begun doling out some $60 million to promote energy storage with the Department of Energy in particular announcing which companies will receive awards. One method for storing energy inexpensive off-peak power compresses air into underground reservoirs which can be quickly brought online as demand peaks.

Energy Storage and Power LLC (ES&P), Basking Ridge, NJ (espcinc.com) received a $20 million investment from the Public Service Enterprise Group Inc to test a recent modification to its compressed-air storage equipment already in service. Energy Storage says it has patented a method for storing compressed air which is more durable and less expensive than batteries. This technique is one proposed solution to the demand for power that varies over a 24 hour period.

The company says it focuses on developing projects that use its second generation Compressed Air Energy Storage (CAES2). Company CTO Michael Nakhamkin lead the design of the first generation 110-MW CAES plant in McIntosh, Alabama that has been operating for 17 years and says the utility has an availability record of about 95%.

Nakhamkin says the CAES2 comes from lessons he has learned and improvements to commercially available equipment. The company says it has several advantages over the first generation CAES technology. For instance, second generation equipment is based on off the shelf components and plant capacity scales from about 15 MW using above-ground tanks to over 400 MW using underground geologic formations.

Capital costs range from about $800 per kW for below ground storage to about $1,200 for small plants using above ground tanks.

Grid support is practically instant, says Energy Storage, during plant operation at some 30 to 100% of capacity. From cold shutdown, about 70% of rated capacity can be delivered in better than 3 to 5 minutes.

Flywheels

These generally use a rotating carbon-fiber composite rim levitated on magnetic bearings operating in a near-frictionless vacuum. The rim is fabricated from a combination of high-strength, lightweight fiber composites. The sturdy construction lets the flywheel spin at speeds to 16,000 rpm to store more energy than could flywheels made from metals. To reach operational speed, the units draw surplus electricity from the grid to power a permanent-magnet motor. The flywheel can spin for extended periods because friction and drag are reduced by magnetic bearings in the vacuum. Low friction means little power maintains the flywheel’s operating speed.

A series of flywheels can provide MWh-sized storage. When a grid needs power, momentum of a spinning flywheel drives its generator to convert kinetic into electrical energy.

The Smart Energy 25, a flywheel design from Beacon Power Corp., Tyngsboro, Mass., (beaconpower.com) seals a rotor in a vacuum chamber so it can spin at 8,000 to 16,000 rpm. To further reduce losses, the rotor levitates with a combination of permanent magnets and electromagnetic bearings. At 16,000 rpm the flywheel stores and delivers 25 kWh.

Although the flywheel can charge in 15 min and fully discharge in the same period, it will more likely be used 15 sec at a time because of the grid’s rapid and normal fluctuations. Beacon Power’s grid-scale Smart Energy Matrix is made of several units connected to store energy for utility applications. “This matrix can absorb and deliver megawatts of power for minutes, providing highly responsive frequency regulation for increased grid reliability,” says Beacon’s Gene Hunt.

“The units are capable of hundreds of thousands of charge-discharge cycles over a 20-year life, making them well suited to regulating frequency,” he adds. And an array of flywheels can be monitored and operated remotely as part of an intelligent grid. No hazardous chemicals or materials simplify permitting.

The company recently added 1 MW to an already working 2 MW facility that provides frequency regulation to the New England grid. The first 2 MW has been online since November 2008. In addition, The New York State Public Service Commission has granted the company a certificate for a 20-MW flywheel frequency regulation plant. Construction will complete within 18 months.

“Our flywheels provide a grid-stabilizing service and they do it faster and more efficiently than today’s conventional methods, most of which consume fossil fuel,” says Beacon President Bill Capp. One company challenge, he says, was proving the value of large-scale storage to investors without any projects to point to as examples. The company has applied for $47 million in DOE stimulus grants to build two more 20-megawatt plants, one in New York and another in the PJM (formerly the Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland) Interconnection.

Batteries

At least four designs for large batteries are getting attention. One uses sodium sulfer, one is lithium-based, another uses a bromine solution, and a fourth with promise will soon leave the lab at a lower cost than the others.

North Carolina’s Duke Energy says it plans to match a $22 million federal grant to test batteries as devices for storing wind energy from its Notrees Windpower Project in Texas.

“Energy storage has potential to serve as a game-changer when it comes to renewable power,” says Duke Energy Generation Services President Wouter van Kempen. The 95-turbine Notrees wind farm has a peak energy production of 151 MW.

Southern California Edison Co. says it has asked for a $25 million stimulus grant to help Massachusetts-based A123 Systems Inc. (a123systems.com) build the world’s biggest lithium-ion battery.
The 32-MWh battery would be assembled using racks of smaller units at a substation in Southern California’s Tehachapi Mountains. The battery would counterbalance wind power sent from the mountains to the utility’s customers in the west and south.

A battery from Japan-based NGK Insolator, Baltimore, (ngk.co.jp/english) uses a sulfur as a positive electrode and sodium as a negative electrode. Beta alumina, a conductive ceramic, separates them. Connecting a load to terminals lets current discharge through the load.

The Electric Power Research Institute, the U.S. utility industry’s R&D consortium in Palo Alto, Calif, says such storage would allow widespread use of renewable power and make the grid more reliable and efficient. Announcements from utility American Electric Power (AEP), Columbus, Ohio suggest that grid storage equipment is ready for commercial deployment in the U.S. AEP has ordered three multi-megawatt batteries and set goals of having 25 megawatts of storage in place by 2010, and 40 times that by 2020. The AEP design uses NGK Insulator’s sodium-sulfur batteries and controls to manage the flow of ac power in and out of the dc battery.

AEP energy engineer Ali Nourai says the company and other U.S. utilities have confidence in the viability of such storage thanks to a demonstration project in Charleston, WV, where the utility installed a large battery in June 2006. Peak demand in Charleston’s summer and winter was overloading transformers at local substations causing blackouts. Rebuilding the substations to accommodate more power could have taken as much as three years. Instead, AEP spent just nine months installing a battery that charges during low power demand and delivers up to 1.2 MW for seven hours when demand peaks.

A more recent sodium-ion battery provides another practical option for storing power, says Carnegie Mellon University material science Professor Jay Whitacre. His startup, 44 Tech, will receive $5 million from the DOE to develop the idea.

Whitacre says the startup’s batteries could be cheaper and longer-lasting than current designs for the same use because sodium sulfate in his design is more abundant and less expensive than lithium. In addition, sodium sulfate is uses as a food preservative making it almost harmless to handle. To trim costs further, Whitacre plans operating at lower cell voltages than other battery chemistries.
Matt Rogers, senior advisor to Energy Secretary Chu, estimates the battery will handle large amounts of energy for about one-tenth the price of similar technology.

The change to sodium-sulfate electrolytes could also make it possible to eliminate much of the supporting material needed in conventional lithium-ion cells, again reducing costs. This is because increasing the ionic conductivity makes it possible to use thicker electrodes with fewer layers of separating and current-collecting materials inside the cell. Whitacre says the first battery will be ready for testing soon and for three or four years at different substations.

The final battery in this quintet also uses a flowing chemical electrode to store up to 50 kWh in a self-contained unit. Unlike the other batteries here, the ZESS (zinc energy storage system) is based on fuel-cell ideas, according to the company, and combines aspects from both battery and fuel cells. The battery represents an environmentally friendly and cost-efficient alternative energy storage, says developer ZBB Energy Corp., Menomonee Falls, Wisc, (zbbenergy.com)

One ZBB module stores 50 kWh. The ZESS 500 is said to be a 500 kWh ‘plug and play’ system consisting of ten of the company’s standard 50 kWh modules, with power electronics. The firm says the units are scalable and mobile. Each 50 kWh battery module is composed of three cell stacks, each with 60 cells in a series. Users can charge the battery from a variety of power sources at different charge rates and it can fully discharge repeatedly without damage. Modules are self-contained, and a control system takes care of energy storage and safety functions.

The company refers to the design as a Regenerative Fuel Cell (RFC) and adds that it relies on a flowing electrolyte with features such as:

• Chemical reactions that take place in the cell stack and excess electrolyte stores in external tanks.

• The predominantly aqueous electrolyte is composed of zinc-bromide salt dissolved in water.

• During charge, metallic zinc is plated from the electrolyte solution onto the negative electrode surfaces in the cell stacks.

Bromide converts to bromine at the positive electrode surface of the cell stack and stores as a safe, chemically complex organic phase in the electrolyte tank.

Each cell stack has 60 bi-polar electrodes between a pair of anode and cathode-end blocks. It operates quietly and at ambient temperature.

Electrodes don’t take part in the chemical reactions. They are substrates for the reactions. That means no loss of performance from repeated cycling that often causes electrode material deterioration.When the ZESS discharges, the metallic zinc plated on the negative electrodes dissolves in the electrolyte and is available for plating at the next charge cycle. And it can be left indefinitely in a fully discharged state.

In one application, a ZESS 500 battery will store power generated by an 850 kW wind turbine that already provides half the power for Ireland’s Dundalk Institute of Technology Centre for Renewable Energy Project. This installation of a ZESS 500 with a wind application will let the campus operate independent of the electrical grid.

Planning a Better Battery for Wind

The people at IBM’s Almaden Institute say its goal is to catalyze long-term, concerted efforts to create rechargeable next-generation batteries with ten times higher energy density, than the best current Lithium-ion batteries. IBM thinkers recognize that renewable energy sources, such as wind and solar power, fluctuate continuously, yet society requires a steady, dependable electricity supply. One solution to wind power’s fluctuations is the development of a grid-scale, efficient, and affordable electrical energy storage network that can locally store and distribute in anticipation of supply and demand. This would completely revolutionize the electrical utility business and prepare it to support widespread use of electric cars.

Most of the world’s oil is burned for transportation uses. Scalable energy storage, deployed in the grid and powering long range all-electric vehicles, can eliminate most need to import oil.

The Lab also recognizes that while scalable energy storage is critical to solving the world’s biggest energy problems, progress has been slow. The good news: There are no fundamental scientific obstacles to creating a battery, says IBM, with ten times the energy density of the best current batteries.

Of course it will be difficult. But the company says given the growth of supercomputing power, coupled with developments in nanotechnology, the time is right to greatly accelerate progress. Petaflop-scale supercomputers allow modeling complex chemical systems for electrolytes, catalysts, and electrodes. Experimental studies, says the Institute, will lead to new nanostructured surfaces, catalysts and membranes.

The Almaden Institute is held annually at IBM’s Almaden Research Center in San Jose, California. It brings together eminent, innovative thinkers from academia, government, industry, research labs and the media for an intellectually charged, stimulating and vigorous dialogue that addresses fundamental challenges at the edge of science and technology. The Institute format is designed to facilitate and foster discussion, debate, interaction, and networking.