Non-aqueous Redox Flow Batteries for Grid Storage

Energy storage is an increasingly valuable asset for electric grids composed of high fractions of intermittent sources, such as solar or wind-generated power, or, in developing economies, unreliable generation and transmission services.  Electrochemical technologies offer a pathway to high performance low cost storage but present state-of-the-art systems are too expensive for widespread deployment [1].  This motivates the search for new energy storage concepts with transformational potential.  To this end, the Joint Center for Energy Storage Research (JCESR) pursues discovery, design, prototyping, and commercialization of next generation beyond Li-ion batteries [2].  JCESR is targeting electrochemical energy storage at a cost of $100/kWh while achieving a 20-year calendar life of up to 7000 cycles at C/5, and having safety standards comparable to a natural gas turbine.  To deliver on these aggressive performance targets, a cohort of JCESR researchers have aligned their R&D activities under the umbrella of the Grid-arc covering the spectrum from discovery to manufacturing.  This presentation aims to provide an overview of these activities while highlighting key advances in the pursuit of JCESR’s three Legacies: (1) to advance the library of fundamental knowledge of materials and phenomena of energy storage, (2) to deliver a prototype capable of meeting JCESR’s performance targets, and (3) to establish a new paradigm for battery R&D.

References

[1]  R.M. Darling, K.G. Gallagher, J.A. Kowalski, S. Ha, F.R. Brushett, “Pathways to low-cost electrochemical energy storage: a comparison of aqueous and nonaqueous flow batteries”, Energy Environ. Sci., 2014, 7, 3459-3477.

[2]  G. Crabtree, “The Joint Center for Energy Storage Research: A New Paradigm for Battery Research and Development”, AIP Conf. Proc., 2015, 1652, 112-128.