Batteries to Storage, why Edison would even be impressed
Within the last five years or so, a new cleantech industry has been emerging, often referred to as “energy storage,” the modern day vernacular for the humble “battery” that traces its roots back to experiments conducted by Benjamin Franklin. All of the recent interest in these devices would likely bring a smile to the face of Alessandro Volta, who invented some of the first liquid electro-chemical cells, or “piles” over 200 hundred years ago. For his efforts, Volta was granted the “naming rights” for the cells electrical capacitive properties, now commonly known as voltage potential.
Within the last five years or so, a new cleantech industry has been emerging, often referred to as “energy storage,” the modern day vernacular for the humble “battery” that traces its roots back to experiments conducted by Benjamin Franklin. All of the recent interest in these devices would likely bring a smile to the face of Alessandro Volta, who invented some of the first liquid electro-chemical cells, or “piles” over 200 hundred years ago. For his efforts, Volta was granted the “naming rights” for the cells electrical capacitive properties, now commonly known as voltage potential.
Over the years not much changed regarding Volts’ novel concepts, in fact there wasn’t much applicable use for his invention at all until the telegraph came along in the mid 1800’s, when the first lead based batteries provided the power for those nascent communications networks as there was no “grid” yet. When the first electrical distribution systems were deployed decades later, Thomas Edison weighed-in on storing energy by declaring, “The storage battery is one of those peculiar things which appeals to the imagination… Scientifically, storage is all right, but, commercially, as absolute a failure as one can imagine." Despite Edison’s take on batteries, dry cell battery types did manage to find their way to markets in the early 1900’s, often used to power mobile devices, such as radios. Battery technology also caught on for the electrical ignition of autos, but was not incorporated to power electric vehicles, in part because Edison is believed to have steered Henry Ford away from such use, despite the fact that Edison would have sold the power to charge the batteries.
In our mobile world of today, we use batteries in countless devices and applications, including a growing number of 21st century electric cars bearing names such as “Tesla” and “Volt”. In fact, the now very humble lead acid batteries that Edison once dismissed are presently produced by the hundreds of millions each year, starting the multitude of engines worldwide that power the personal, commercial and recreational vehicles that today are a critical backbone of our modern lives. Billions more alkaline cells and now more recently, those made of lithium, power every type of consumer device imaginable. A smart phone or MP3 player wouldn’t exist without a lithium ion battery unit on board. Given their small footprint, price and performance characteristics, such batteries are becoming so ubiquitous that they are now being adopted to displace liquid fuels in such stalwart small engine products like lawn mowers, chain saws and yard trimmers, eliminating millions of pounds of CO2 emissions while making yard work lighter and quieter.
Along the way to the present-day, batteries, particularly lead acid types, have also been deployed across the digital frontier as back-up power sources in nearly every data center on the planet. Sitting there, waiting for the grid to drop out, these batteries act as a bridge supply to keep the power flowing on the global telecom networks of our era. This is a valuable role as the losses from power outages on the Internet could total millions of dollars in just a few seconds at a single location. While these relatively inexpensive batteries do store a few minutes of energy for critical power delivery for that “just in case” scenario, they spend most of their service lives just sitting there as insurance policy. The biggest “storage of battery energy on the planet” is not at present a dynamic resource for the “smart grid” of the future.
So what is holding back the humble battery from being the ‘holy grail’ of our green energy future? For one it is a matter of scale. It takes millions, if not tens of millions of these energy-packed boxes that Volta himself would instantly recognize from their cell-based electrochemistry, into massive ‘energy storage farms’. These storage tanks of electricity that are envisioned by renewable energy promoters would take what are inherently intermittent sources of power and transform them into smooth, dispatchable power plants, just like their fossil fuel brethren.
Also, the electro chemistry and product designs of the workhorse lead acid batteries just don’t hold up under heavy, daily use, and their performance is affected by the ambient temperatures in which they operate. The wear-and-tear of repeated charging and discharging, the moving of electrons in and out of storage is an anathema to the 150-year electrochemical process that goes on inside of the cells of the lead acid units. But where power systems don’t readily exist or are less reliable than the grids of the developed world, lead acids, in their historic format, have been the go-to product based on price and widespread availability, however they are simply not going to be the thoroughbred of our “smart grid” future.
The other key factor, beyond the engineering feat that would be needed to transform millions of battery cells into megawatts of power and energy, is the economics of energy storage. Today, as much as we may complain of the amounts on our monthly electric bills, the per unit price of electricity just isn’t that great on the mainland US and the value per unit difference between peak and non-peak hours is not steep enough to justify the daily “banking” of surplus, low-priced off-peak power to high-priced times, during all but the hottest handful of summer days by itself.
For Energy Storage to demonstrate both technical and commercial value today must be in applications that combine multiple value streams. Regardless of the actual technology deployed, the storage products of today will need to multi-task; smooth and shape onsite renewable power, provide onsite “peaking” for cogen CHP plants, serve as reserve of power when the grid does go down and act as a daily-use resource that balances the ebbs of supply and demand for power. They might also serve as the power source for a growing body of direct current power needs in buildings like data centers which is a commercial use that Edison might even find value in!
