One of the key companies if we talk about renewable energy storage is Form Energy. Its innovative iron-air technology promises to outperform all large lithium battery projects, for just 10% of the cost. Your first factory is about to be manufactured.
Form’s grid batteries are built around huge flat iron-air cells, about one square meter. Around half are inserted into modules the size of a washing machine and bathed in a liquid electrolyte. These cells work using the oxide cycle: they are charged by applying energy to iron oxide, converting it back to metallic iron… and then adding oxygen to start the oxidation process and release energy.
Iron is cheap and abundant, making these modules extremely affordable. They last a long time, they are safe and they are recyclable: If a battery breaks, the metal can be removed and used elsewhere. All of these factors make it an exceptionally affordable form of energy storage, costing 10 times less than lithium batteries, even if we imagine a lower price of lithium.
Of course, they don’t charge or discharge as fast as lithium, so they’ll likely work alongside lithium grid batteries in hybrid setups. Thus, iron-air batteries handle long, slow charging demands, reserving lithium battery packs to handle momentary spikes. Form says that at scale, they will deliver more than 3 MW of production capacity per acre (4,047 square meters) and excel where power is needed to store power for 100 hours or more.
This is the type of storage you need when weather events dramatically reduce solar and wind production for several days. Hence, Form’s proposal caught the attention of investors: from Breakthrough Energy Ventures from Bill Gates to the Luxembourg steel giant ArcelorMittal have been among the shareholders. Thus they obtained more than 800 million US dollars of financing
This same year, the battery manufacturing plant in Weirton, West Virginia (USA) started up. The $760 million project will employ about 750 people. The first iron-air batteries are expected to start arriving en masse on the market in 2024.
Source: Form Energy
