This could be a turning point for renewable energy.
A
relatively cheap and environmentally friendly battery that uses saltwater and
other commonly available materials to solve one of the biggest technical
challenges facing renewable energy technologies was awarded a prize whose past
recipients have gone on to have significant impact on technology and society at
large.
An Aqueous
Hybrid Ion battery roughly the size of a dishwasher or small refrigerator
potentially stores enough solar or wind energy to power a single-family home
completely off the grid in a region where sunlight is relatively plentiful,
according to Dr. Jay Whitacre, a professor of materials science at Carnegie
Mellon who invented the battery.
Whitacre
founded Aquion Energy in 2008 and received venture funding from Kleiner Perkins
Caufield and Byers shortly thereafter. It was announced Tuesday that Whitacre
was given the 2015 Lemelson-MIT Prize, an award worth $500,000, for inventing
the battery. (Investors in Aquion include Bill Gates and venture capital firm
Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers.)
Past
winners of the Lemelson-MIT Prize have included other influential inventors,
including Ray Kurzweil, Dean Kamen, Douglas Engelbart, the inventor of the
computer mouse, and Leroy Hood, who invented the DNA sequencer.
A suitable
and inexpensive method for storing energy could be a boon to the adoption of
renewable energy technology, especially sources such as wind and solar energy.
When
conditions are favorable, these sources are capable of capturing much more
energy than users might immediately need. But when the sun is not shining or
the wind is not blowing, they are of little help.
Scientists
and the renewable energy industry have considered using batteries to smooth out
this imbalance; energy captured when sun or wind are abundant can be stored and
be meted out in leaner times.
This would
make wind and solar far more competitive with fossil fuels and nuclear power,
which are seen as providing a steadier stream of electricity than wind and
solar.
There
already are similar batteries available, but Whitacre says they are typically
made with materials that might be unsafe, are more expensive or are
environmentally dangerous.
Lithium-ion
batteries are a common technology that Whitacre said might be considered
competitors with Aquion's batteries, but lithium-ion batteries that can perform
for as many charge and discharge cycles as Aquion's saltwater battery would
cost significantly more.
Whitacre
said that the company should be able to sell Aquion batteries capable of
powering a typical single family home for between $1,000 and $3,000, depending
on the size, once the company is working at full production in the next year or
two. Those batteries will last for about 3,000 cycles, or 3,000 days and
nights. So, if the battery were hooked up to solar panels, one day would
represent a full charge and one night might represent a full discharge. Taken
together, one charge and one discharge makes one complete cycle.
In
addition, lithium-ion batteries are full of a flammable solvent, whereas the
Aquion battery are nonflammable and nonexplosive, Whitacre told CNBC.
"[Our
batteries] cannot burn, they are full of water," he said. "And when they
dry out, they are fire retardant." The batteries also do not use heavy
metals or toxic chemicals.
Michael
Webber, deputy director of the Energy Institute at the University of Texas,
said he was not familiar with Aquion Energy in particular, but he said that a
saltwater-based battery poses a number of potential advantages over other
options.
"With
some battery technologies, such as lithium-ion, you have potential issues with
the price and availability of the materials."
Webber said
that some of the materials needed for batteries could prove difficult to source
down the road. There even could be trade or supply-chain security issues that
may hinder access to needed materials in countries where they are mined.
"Saltwater,
on the other hand, is everywhere, so you don't have those same
constraints," he said.
Aqueous-ion
batteries are also easier to build than lithium-ion batteries, said Robert
Fares, a researcher in Webber's lab at the University of Texas.
"It is
basically electrodes that dip into the saltwater, whereas lithium batteries
undergo this complex manufacturing process," Fares told CNBC.
Stringing
lithium-ion batteries together also generally requires a battery management
system to manage them, which Aquion's batteries do not need.
However, there
are a couple of limitations to saltwater batteries in general, Fares said.
First, aqueous-ion batteries have a lower energy density than lithium
batteries; lithium-ion batteries can pack more battery capacity into a smaller
case than aqueous-ion batteries can.
And,
generally lithium-ion batteries come out on top for efficiency.
"A
battery is a box of energy where you put a certain amount of energy in, and you
get a slightly smaller amount of energy out," he said. With lithium-ion,
you get out a larger amount of the energy that you had put into the box.
That might
not be a problem for aqueous-ion batteries, as long as they save enough money
over lithium-ion to make up for the lost efficiency, Fares said.
Aquion is
focusing its near-term sales efforts on areas where energy is expensive and
dirty, such as island regions, developing countries or remote regions with poor
energy infrastructure.
Courtesy:
msn.com
