Western Australian battery technology company Altech Batteries has announced its first Cerenergy ABS60 salt-based battery energy storage system prototype is online and operating successfully across a range of temperatures, confirming its thermal stability and commercial viability.
It probably doesn’t matter. This type of battery is not all that interesting for things like electric cars, rather more so for things like grid energy storage on a massive scale. Think 1000s of these in a large building, getting charged during the day with excess solar energy, releasing it into the grid at night. Stuff like this is what has been missing to make even better use of renewables.
Yeah that’s one thing I think doesn’t get much attention. We actually have a lot of solar in some major countries. In many areas, there’s too much and it’s wasted right now. The efficiency of the grid’s solar intake and distribution is often times worse than the solar panel efficiency themselves. If we can store and distribute that excess with the same efficiency of the panels, it would be a huge stress relief on many systems.
It sounds like it works really well. The physical size does sound quite large, but I’m not sure how that compares against other types of batteries.
It probably doesn’t matter. This type of battery is not all that interesting for things like electric cars, rather more so for things like grid energy storage on a massive scale. Think 1000s of these in a large building, getting charged during the day with excess solar energy, releasing it into the grid at night. Stuff like this is what has been missing to make even better use of renewables.
How about one of those in your basement or shack to charge your car overnight?
Yeah that’s one thing I think doesn’t get much attention. We actually have a lot of solar in some major countries. In many areas, there’s too much and it’s wasted right now. The efficiency of the grid’s solar intake and distribution is often times worse than the solar panel efficiency themselves. If we can store and distribute that excess with the same efficiency of the panels, it would be a huge stress relief on many systems.