• About
    • Which Energy Mix is this?
  • Climate News Network Archive
  • Contact
The climate news that makes a difference.
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
  • Canada
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Cities & Communities
  • Electric Mobility
  • Heat & Power
  • Community Climate Finance
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
  • Canada
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Cities & Communities
  • Electric Mobility
  • Heat & Power
  • Community Climate Finance
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Cities & Communities
  • Electric Mobility
  • Heat & Power
  • Community Climate Finance
  FEATURED
‘Huge Loss’ for Local Green Economy as Vancouver Shutters Its Economic Commission September 28, 2023
Leading Climate Models Underestimate Clean Energy Progress, Overstate Cost, Study Finds September 28, 2023
Green Space Groups Gear for Bigger Fights After Ontario Reverses Greenbelt Land Grab September 28, 2023
Put Lower-Income Households First in Line for Low-Carbon Technologies: Samson September 28, 2023
Fossil Fuels Fall 25% by 2030, Renewables ‘Keep the Path Open’ in IEA Net-Zero Update September 26, 2023
Next
Prev

Lithium-Ion Success Creates Barrier for Newer Storage Technologies

June 22, 2017
Reading time: 3 minutes

RudolfSimon/Wikimedia Commons

RudolfSimon/Wikimedia Commons

 

A handful of recent setbacks for energy storage start-ups points to the high cost of bringing new concepts to commercial scale against a strongly entrenched incumbent technology—in this case, the ubiquitously successful lithium-ion battery.

MIT Technology Review pegs its observation to the fates of four alternative battery makers: one filed for bankruptcy in March, a second put itself up for sale after failing to find investors, a third retrenched, while a fourth withdrew from the storage business entirely.

  • The climate news you need. Subscribe now to our engaging new weekly digest.
  • You’ll receive exclusive, never-before-seen-content, distilled and delivered to your inbox every weekend.
  • The Weekender: Succinct, solutions-focused, and designed with the discerning reader in mind.
Subscribe

What the companies had in common was that they were all trying to sell comparatively unconventional approaches to storing electricity. Aquion Energy’s batteries used a salt water electrolyte, manganese oxide cathode, and a carbon-based anode. EnerVault made flow batteries, which involve two different solutions separated by a membrane. Ambri’s batteries relied on liquid metal. And LightSail Energy proposed to “store energy as compressed air in carbon fibre tanks,” but now sells the containers to hold natural gas.

“What is clear,” MIT observes, “is that despite the compelling need for better grid storage technology, any start-up today faces several daunting realities.” One is that the market for grid-scale storage “still isn’t large, in part because the technologies are immature and expensive”—something of a Catch-22 for the industry. But “more important in the immediate term, the price of existing technology in the form of lithium-ion batteries has dropped far faster than expected, narrowing the promised benefits of new approaches.”

The cost and mind-share competition from lithium-ion batteries is only becoming more insurmountable with time, MIT asserts. Bloomberg New Energy Finance, for one, projects that the floor price of LiON cells will drop to US$109 per kilowatt-hour by 2025, and to US$73 by 2030, though former Ambri founder and MIT material scientist Donald Sadoway notes that the 2030 estimate “seems to dip below the cost of raw materials.”

Still, start-ups promoting alternative approaches “must make a massive up-front investment to develop new hardware and scale up manufacturing, all while chasing moving price and performance targets as incumbent technologies improve,” the Review notes. Meanwhile, prospective “customers considering a multi-million-dollar storage system have little incentive to bet on an emerging and riskier technology. Lithium-ion batteries already meet many of the specific needs of large-scale utility customers, offering a reliable product from stable providers.”

That might not matter, Tech Review reflects, except that “the danger, in this case, is that many observers believe lithium-ion isn’t the right technology for full-scale baseload grid storage, because there seem to be limits on how cheap and long-lasting the technology can ever become.”

For one thing, the number of charge/discharge cycles that LiON batteries can sustain remains to be proven in commercial use; a lower than expected number could drive up the effective price of that form of storage. But while that question plays out, the technology’s market dominance “frosts over an already chilly investment market for technologies that may be only minimally better today, but could have far greater potential to transform the energy system in the long run.”

Numerous technologies might fill that role, the Review notes: “In addition to advanced battery possibilities, there are flywheels, compressed air, hydrogen fuel cells, electric-vehicle-to-grid systems, and even energy-storing air conditioners. But all these technologies are likely to require deep, sustained investments to develop them, test whether they are truly viable, and make them cost-competitive. The question is where such investments will come from.”

Or whether it will come at all. “Don’t hold your breath for the things that come after lithium-ion,” said energy entrepreneur Ilan Gur. “We’re much more likely to ride the lithium-ion cost curve for another few decades.”



in Batteries / Storage, Community Climate Finance, Heat & Power, Research & Development, United States

The latest climate news and analysis, direct to your inbox

Subscribe

Related Posts

Iota 9/Wikimedia Commons
Cities & Communities

‘Huge Loss’ for Local Green Economy as Vancouver Shutters Its Economic Commission

September 28, 2023
1
Solarimo/pixabay
Ending Emissions

Leading Climate Models Underestimate Clean Energy Progress, Overstate Cost, Study Finds

September 28, 2023
2
DiscoverEganville/wikimedia commons
Electric Mobility & Auto

EV Rentals to Improve Transportation Access for Ontario Townships

September 28, 2023
1

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

I agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy.

Trending Stories

Cullen328/wikimedia commons

Manufactured Housing Could Dent the Affordable Housing Crunch with Energy-Efficient Designs

September 20, 2023
622
Mark Dixon/wikimedia commons

Hundreds of Thousands March in Global Climate Strike

September 19, 2023
211
Jon Sullivan/flickr

Thorold Gas Peaker Plant Won’t Be Built After Unanimous City Council Vote

September 21, 2023
749
Jason Blackeye/Unsplash

Fossil Fuels Fall 25% by 2030, Renewables ‘Keep the Path Open’ in IEA Net-Zero Update

September 28, 2023
403
/Piqusels

‘Beginning of the End’ for Oil and Gas as IEA Predicts Pre-2030 Peak

September 19, 2023
845
Duffins Agriculture Preserve/North Country House Media via Greenbelt Foundation

Green Space Groups Gear for Bigger Fights After Ontario Reverses Greenbelt Land Grab

September 28, 2023
151

Recent Posts

Iota 9/Wikimedia Commons

‘Huge Loss’ for Local Green Economy as Vancouver Shutters Its Economic Commission

September 28, 2023
1
Solarimo/pixabay

Leading Climate Models Underestimate Clean Energy Progress, Overstate Cost, Study Finds

September 28, 2023
2
DiscoverEganville/wikimedia commons

EV Rentals to Improve Transportation Access for Ontario Townships

September 28, 2023
1
shopblocks/flickr

E-Bikes, Scooters Overwhelm Toronto Bike Lanes

September 28, 2023
2
kelly8843496 / Pixabay

Put Lower-Income Households First in Line for Low-Carbon Technologies: Samson

September 28, 2023
2
Power lines, Mississauga, Canada

Two First Nations Groups Vie to Build Northern Ontario Power Line

September 28, 2023
111
Next Post
Patrick Kelley/Wikimedia Commons

Accelerating Antarctic Melt Drives Ice Loss Above and Below

The Energy Mix - The climate news you need

Copyright 2023 © Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy and Copyright
  • Cookie Policy

Proudly partnering with…

scf_withtagline
The Energy Mix - Energy Central
No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Cities & Communities
  • Electric Mobility
  • Heat & Power
  • Community Climate Finance

Copyright 2022 © Smarter Shift Inc. and Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

Manage Cookie Consent
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behaviour or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}