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US-based Form Energy has developed a utility-sized battery capable of providing electricity for up to four days continuously, Bloomberg reports. The new battery technology offers a 100-hour continuous power supply, which is 25x longer than most current grid-tied batteries.
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How does it work? Form’s battery takes a different approach from lithium-ion technology, relying on iron and air. When the battery is in use, the iron inside the battery reacts with oxygen to create iron oxides (rust) and the reaction releases energy. During recharging, the process is reversed, separating the iron and oxygen.
There are challenges: Form’s battery can discharge for 100 hours, but it also takes a full 100 hours to recharge. The batteries are also quite large, with each rectangular cell being a meter tall. These cells are stacked into modules of 30, and 10 modules are combined into a unit roughly the size of a shipping container. Twenty of these huge units can generate one MW of power, enough to supply electricity for about 750 average homes.
What’s next? Form — which raised USD 1.2 bn from investors including Breakthrough Energy — will deploy the batteries at power plants across the US starting next year. The company is also planning a second-generation battery that would add more energy storage capacity into each of the cells, which the company hopes would lead to its scaling-up plans in 2026.
