The energy from
the sun and wind could one day be stored in a new battery
made of low-cost,
safe materials. Credit: Wesley VanDinter/iStock/Thinkstock
(November 4, 2015) Wind
and solar energy projects are growing at a respectable clip. But storing
electric power for days when the air is still or when the sun goes down remains
a challenge, largely due to cost. Now researchers are developing a new battery
that could bring the price of storage to more affordable levels. They report
their new battery that uses low-cost materials — sodium and magnesium — in ACS’
journal Chemistry of Materials.
Today, lithium-ion batteries are the storage technology of
choice for many applications, from electric cars to smartphones. And, it
appears, saving up power for homes is next. For example, Tesla, the maker of
luxury electric cars, is ambitiously expanding its lithium-ion technology to
fill that niche and has already started rolling out systems to homeowners in a
pilot project. But the $3,000 price tag for the pack itself plus installation
costs put it out of reach for most customers. To make larger-scale energy
storage more accessible, Maksym V. Kovalenko and colleagues wanted to develop
an affordable alternative to lithium-ion.