Tiny battery traps solar power to run a house for 24 hrs  

Posted by Big Gav in , ,

The Times of India has an article on a new battery technology being promoted by Daniel Nocera - Tiny battery traps solar power to run a house for 24 hrs.

A Utah-based company has found a new way to store solar energy – in a small ceramic disk which can store more power for less. Researchers at Ceramatec have created the disk, which can hold up to 20-kilowatt hours, enough to power an entire house for a large portion of the day.

The new battery runs on sodium-sulfur — a composition that typically operates at greater than 600°F. “Sodium-sulfur is more energetic than lead-acid, so if you can somehow get it to a lower temperature, it would be valuable for residential use”, Ralph Brodd, an independent energy conversion consultant, says.

Ceramatec’s new battery runs at less than 200°F. The secret is a thin ceramic membrane that is sandwiched between the sodium and sulfur. Only positive sodium ions can pass through, leaving electrons to create a useful electrical current.

Ceramatec says that batteries will be ready for market testing in 2011, and will sell for about $2000. The disk has not yet been manufactured for residential use, but the creators have spoken optimistically about the possibility.

The convergence of two key technologies — solar power and deep-storage batteries — has profound implications for oil-strapped the US.

“These batteries switch the whole dialogue to renewables,” said Daniel Nocera, professor of energy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who sits on Ceramatec’s advisory board. “They will turn us away from dumb technology, circa 1900 — a 110-year-old approach — and turn us forward.”

4 comments

Here's a much more detailed article on these batteries.

http://www.heraldextra.com/news/article_b0372fd8-3f3c-11de-ac77-001cc4c002e0.html

The whole house batteries aren't expected to be "tiny", but small enough. A 20 kWh unit should be about the size of a refrigerator.

(BTW, I live off the grid with solar and have 18kWh lead acid storage which will carry me about three days of no sun.)

Here's a bit in the article that caught my eye...


With some 21 plants producing advanced ceramic products worldwide, the expectation is that full-scale production of ceramic sheets for the new batteries could be tooled up in short order. In fact, only a handful of CoorsTek facilities would likely be employed.

The order of magnitude pencils out along these lines: a target of 20 gigawatt hours of storage in 20 kilowatt-hour battery increments equals 1 million batteries. Or using a different metric, 1 million square meters of thin ceramic electrolyte would yield 20 gigawatt hours of batteries, equal to California's entire spinning reserve.

Nobody at CoorsTek even blinks at such figures. The company already produces 3 million pounds of ceramic material per month. "Once we have a working prototype battery with all the standards and cost requirements met, it will come up quickly," said Grover Coors. "It would scare people to know how quickly we can bring this up."

Thanks Robert - that one is a much better article.

Glad to hear you are already self-sufficient for power :-)

Improved storage would be a game changer for off the gridders such as me. Seven plus months per year my generator sits idle. I've got all the sun I need from 1.2 kW of panels to run my house and shop tools.

The other months are solar feast or famine. I can get socked in for a few days when a storm comes through and then have lots of nice bright sun, but my storage ability is limited.

I'm using a dozen golf cart batteries which I have to change out every 5-7 years. If this "ceramic" battery were available I could buy 2 or 3 at $2k apiece, boost my panel array some, and not have to buy any fuel for the gen.

I wouldn't have to spend any thing on fuel (or generator repair/replacement) and these batteries report to last much longer than the lead acids I have been using.

I could probably rotate "batteries" from time to time and bring the extra units on line only when we were experiencing a long sun-less period.

BTW, panel prices are coming down. A few years ago one could get new panels for just under $4 per watt. Then the price spiked up over $5 per when supply tightened. Recently I've seen two local ads for new panels at $3 per watt.

When I bought my first panels back in the early 1990s retail for new panels was around $12 (2009 dollars) per watt.

Bob - good to see real world panel prices are continuing to fall.

Re: your other message - my email is biggav at gmail dot com - not sure what yours is - let me know and I'll reply...

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