Liquid Metal Batteries are going global in 2022!
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- čas přidán 17. 05. 2024
- Liquid metal battery technology has the potential to revolutionise utility scale energy storage, but it's been a long and difficult road for the creator, Donald Sadoway, and his company, Ambri Inc.
2022 looks like their breakthrough year though, and their liquid metal batteries now look set to become a global phenomenon.
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Many of those new battery technologies claim to be just better at everything than LiPo, basically the Mary Sue of batteries. Ambri is different, they made some big tradeoffs to get a very specialized battery that is good in stationary short term energy storage and nothing else. That is exactly why they are realistic and why I hope that they will do well.
Couldn't have said it better myself, they're realistic about the downsides which is why unlike so many others I think they will make it.
Agreed. We've invested in LiFePO 4 for our boat, and it's so frustrating to keep hearing about it becoming obsolete. Obsolescence is good, it means there is progress, but I'm wasting time hearing about things that might be better but aren't feasible.
I don’t know if it’s that the alternative batteries claim to be Mary Sues, so much as the problem that so much of the new energy media can’t talk about ANYTHING without using the words “revolutionary” and “game changer”, even for small incremental improvements in existing tech, or total vaporware.
Are you sure? The Lithium Ion revolution came from people finding a lot of different uses for the tech and therefore optimizing the manufacturing
Why build a high-tech, hyper-expensive, omni-potent battery, when one based on 3 bulk metals fits perfect your precise situation...?!? No semi-permeable membranes, no thermal run-away, no dendrites, no complicated electrolytes or even kathodes/anodes, but instead just 3 metal slabs layered over each other. A study in simplicity !!!
I was trying to raise money for these guys about 7 years ago and spent time with Don at MIT and some of the Ambri team. Like much new tech in the battery space it’s so frustrating as conceptually it just ticks so many boxes but the heat was (and maybe still is) such an Achilles heel for them as it degrades components. So the battery chemistry is no longer the limiting factor on life span. Nonetheless (and despite not raising $1 for them in the end) I still think it’s one of the most promising grid storage tech out there due to the cycling capabilities and low component costs. I am really gunning for these guys. Also worth mentioning - Don Sadoway is certainly very “charismatic”. His tie collection is questionable but man can the guy spin a yarn. Wishing them the best of success.
Finding the right ceramic insulators proved difficult, but now that's solved
I saw Don’s CZcams video about the ideas behind the LMB. I was hunting for a way to invest in this tech, but as reported , currently now way for the average Joe to do so. Looking forward to being able to do so.
Interesting, I wouldn't have thought that material degradation would be an issue.
Do you have any insight into what cost per kWh the metals/salts used imply? Just the raw materials, to get an understanding what the theoretical cost floor is as long as they stick to the current alloys?
@@john0constantine It was just the ceramics as far as I know - expansion and contraction inside a metal housing
They would work well as a storage system for tidal hydro generators since the cycle would charge up twice a day with each tide.
Great update video. I'm biased about this company as the CTO and co founder, David Bradwell is a childhood friend, but the simplicity and well thought out nature of it is what helped change it from a masters thesis to what it is now. I hope they will not IPO and be forced into following investors wishes so we have a great grid level storage option soon!
It's good to see that these systems have been installed at scale for a few real customers. It's well out of the lab and now they seem to be scaling beyond modest applications. We need as great a diversity of solutions as possible and the more renewable power we can soak up, store, and release will mean the wind and solar capacity will be better realised (no curtailment). This tech seems like a great way to help get us there.
Oh yeah, and a plethora of decommissioned coal fired power stations to connect directly to grid. It's the ultimate repurposing of existing infrastructure as the collection point from generation to grid, connecting straight in. Could be a huge saving in capital expenditure...
no no no. It's conditionnal purchase agreement. There are hundreds of CCS plant that staled at that stage for decades...
This video is the first I've heard of the liquid metal battery. While I heard a lot about deals and investments, I didn't hear him once say that there is an actual installation anywhere and how well it is performing.
Thank you for the update video! It's really interesting see which of these ideas go on to develop their potential, and which ones never get beyond the PR stage. We're going to need every good idea we can get.
It looks like there is something to liquid metal batteries and Ambri. I'm glad they're continuing to develop on an international scale.
I've looking for them a long time. It makes me confident that this type of battery will be a success. Because it is simple and has "simple" available materials. Thank you for the update.
Fingers crossed!
@@JustHaveaThink I'm skeptical about these. I think they will likely have a quite niche use at extremes of temperature, be it hot - they run hot, cold - no problem they run hot. Iron-Oxide as bizarre as it sounds, seems more promising for general grid-storage. There's been a *lot* of money chucked at that concept by some of the world's richest people.
Meanwhile, Aluminium-Sulphur batteries seem promising and may have a place in the energy market, though I've not looked into them much yet. No danger of them igniting and exploding causing nightmares for everyone including the fire brigade, like Lithium would, is a good selling point though?
@Michael Child I´unno.
There are quite a lot of industries who have a lot of waste heat to manage.
Aside from server farms there is glass and cement production, large parts of the chemical industry, steel and other metal smelters ....
Many of those have machinery designed to never be shut down but be heated and run continuosly.
And have heat waste management systems which could be reconfigured to produce considerable mutual advantages with this kind of setup.
A niche of course, but not a small one.
Thank you for the update, I have been following Ambri a while. Great concept, so glad things are working out for them.
Thank you. I'm in South Africa and it's great to know Ambri will be bringing their tech here as one of their first large-scale endeavours.
I thought they failed a long time ago when they couldn't find a suitable material for the high temperature seals. Good to see they are still alive.
I like (as always) your transparency and clarity about sponsorships and any conflict of interest. This is how you earn trust!
Great video!
you mean that you love add for vapoware? I love it but I fully know that it's bull***
Long Anticipated one. Let's Watch. Thanks Mate
South Africa’s Eskom have major problems to keep up with demand due to a very old fleet and new fleet design flaws. The older folk in government also still want to hang on to coal mines. Very happy to hear about the battery installation in Western Cape. Thanks for a great update. Your contributions are always interesting and worth listening to.
Thanks Etienne. Much appreciated
Eskom is well known for its lack of reliability, iit's old plants and it's relaxed standards on flue gas and waste watermark treatment. Certainly this was only possible because of heavy state "involvement"
I always had a good feeling about LMB batteries - big & simple.
If you want dirt cheap batteries, make them out of dirt. lol
It will be interesting to see what price they actually turn out at. I presume they are currently quite expensive.
Or sand! (to store heat)
@@xxwookey thats why you wait til compeditors starts mass production
We need to replace underground gas tanks at stations with some type of liquid battery. The tanks are already there and the stations will need energy storage when the pumps are replaced with charging points.
Great video as always. This is the best Channel on CZcams! 👍🏿
Nice to hear Ambri are installing batteries in South Africa, Eastern Cape where I am from. we have been experiencing rolling black outs and load shedding since 2006. first it was a little inconvenience but now its a psudo ramdom occurrence. Thanks for your fantastic shows, look forward to seeing more...
batteries are not an energy source.
I appreciate your continued reporting, David, on these long duration grid scale storage battery technologies. Some of the other ones you've put out there were Form Energy's iron air technology and Henrik Stiesdal's heated crushed rock system. And I'm sure there are others that I may have missed. Once one or more of these products proves their worth in the field, we can finally remove the last obstacle of using wind and solar for base load power.
Cheers Benjamin. Much appreciated
Correction this is a long lifecycle system (many charge discharge cycles), a long duration system is on that efficently holds energy for a long time between discharges.
Amen
i have been watching this canadian professor for over 10 years. i can not wait to invest.
Thanks for the update! I've been very interested in these batteries and their potential, since you first mentioned them.
Another interesting technology in the storage arena: thanks for revisiting it.
It’s obvious to everyone who thinks, that energy storage is the key to renewables - there’s more than enough energy from solar, wind and geothermal to go around - and more and more exploration of the periodic table is being done.
Good luck to them!
Things like this are proof that simple ideas can go a long way. Cheap energy storage, better building insulation, higher mileage cars, more efficient appliances, cogeneration, supply chain optimisation, all save energy and play a big part. We don't have to finance a hundred $10 billion nuclear power plants that take forever to build in order to solve our energy problems.
"We don't have to finance _a hundred $10 billion nuclear power plants that take forever to build_ in order to solve our energy problems." (Italics added.)
Yes! This! Nukes take too long and cost too much.
I love that you are providing updates.
I'm from South Africa. This is especially important for our country. To be honest, I'm hoping that South Africa develops its own battery. Especially considering that we have the over 70% of the world's Manganese.
That’s a help and a hindrance. Having 70% of any material is a blessing and a curse for you but a deal breaker for the rest of the world. Large dependance on any one country becomes a liability.
@@StarBase7390 fortunately it's not high in demand. Due to so many alternatives.
Great to see the channel revisiting previous innovations as they mature and see if they are ramping up into real world use and industrialisation. It's such an important factor in the impact of the idea.
But that isn't what is occurring. It is marketing wank... but you see it as legitimizing the original position.
@@ShainAndrews Their 200000 unit per year operation is two blokes in a unit.This does not look like an operation making grid scale batteries
I've been following them for a few years. Good to see they have contracts and production starting. Obviously grid storage is so key and currently so many grid batteries are lithium ion (which has had a long head start) but there are issues with thermal runaway which is not an issue with ambri's design. I also think the ev growth and subsequent demand for lithium, class 1 nickel etc will add to the cost of lithium grid batteries.
Great to get these technology updates!
Thanks for the update. I was just wondering about this the other day
No problem 👍
Liquid metal is my favorite grid scale battery storage tech up to several days. A tech that must be insulated to stay hot instead of cooled to stay within its operating rage is better for grid scale battery storage. Good for 200,000 full charge / discharge cycles at one / day means a 300 year life expectancy that in practical terms outlasts the install. I recall Ambri (Sadoway) indicated a typical minimum charge / discharge cycle of every two days, not twice / day as you indicated, since a four day discharge capacity is minimal spec for supplying power to a data center. If you wanted to store power for six months (as an example of function) you would charge the battery in sections and let them freeze, and then thaw (melt) the sections a few days ahead of when you needed the power. The only thing useful to do twice / day is artificially heating the battery since it has to provide power for four days and both solar power and most loads peak once / day.
Just to be clear, by “thaw the sections” you mean heat these chunks of metal up to 500°.
@@jeffg4570 if an battery is that container we saw in video, let's say it's 2x2x3 meter, =12 cubic meter of metal. And for some serious infrastructure I think you need to have tens or even hundreds of them. How manny megawatt hours would that consume? Hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands??
Depending on the way electricity is generated in the grid, two charge cycles per day is completely reasonable. You charge once during midday, when demand is high, but solar supply is higher, then discharge in the evening. When people go to sleep during the night, demand drops. If demand drops enough and you are generating enough electricity from non-solar sources (geothermal, nuclear, wind, hydro and fossil fuels), you can then charge the battery during the night, and discharge it in the morning, when people wake up.
Great video, Dave! Storage needs to be rolled out on scale. It's still disheartning to see wind generators offline when it's windy
Cheers Martin. Totally agree
Thank you for the update. It would solve a lot of issues currently plaguing commercial energy storage.
Thanks for the update on this interesting company. Keep up the good work!
Thanks, will do!
Good to see Ambri shows some significant progress, I have been following this company for quite some time now and love the idea of a hot battery using abundantly readily available materials and do not require huge expansion of mining operations, like what is necessary with Lithium and Nickel.
"To make it dirt cheap, you have to make it out of dirt!" - Donald Sadoway
The low degradation and high cycle life without the need of complex cooling systems, makes it also very low maintenance, low operating cost, practically a set and forget system. Very attractive for energy companies. The high temperature at which these batteries operate makes that it does not care about the environment they are placed in. extreme hot (desert) or extreme cold (Antarctica), the battery does not care.
Marketing... it is all marketing...
"To make it dirt cheap, you have to make it out of dirt!" - Donald Sadoway
..... preferably locally sourced :)
Yes, lots of talk but no real data about what has really been deployed. And results for those site after a year or two. Also with new month this month they hope to expand to 200k cells per year. Would have been useful to say what a cell is 1w/2wmins or is it 3Mw/12Mwh; no way to tell. If I go to their website I see
Capacity: 1000 kWh, 250 kW
DC Efficiency: exceeds 80% under wide range of use cases
Response time:
So if those guesses from they website right, just the Earth&wire deal is 3 years production once a full capacity.
At $100/kwh and 10,000 cycles ($0.01 / kwh shifted) this appears to work very economically for daily day night shifting (e.g solar in sunny climate). It does not work nearly as well for week shifting ($0.07/kwh shifted) or month shifting ($0.30/kwh shifted). Your are still going to need gas backup for wind especially and sometimes for solar. Do the math.
*** 20 yrs/10,000 cycles, nothing to wear out, no maintenance, no ambient temp limitations, no fire risk. Truly is a game changer for solar in sunny climates. ***
I've been a skeptic regarding solar as a viable energy source except in climates where it can offset AC using the house thermal mass and run the AC during max solar. This battery really improves solar's viability. Wind still needs 10-30 day backup, thus I'm still a wind skeptic.
I pay 10-12 cents per kWh to my utility. With this battery, my utility could probably economically add solar without raising my rates. On the other hand, I would probably lose my off peak 5 cent per kwh EV charging rates.
Wait. This battery uses antimony. Antimony is 100x less abundant than lithium. How can this battery be low cost? What am I missing?
Thank you very much for the update. I'm really impressed with this company and their product design. Thank you most though for the unexpected little tidbit of insight. The fact that the system needs to be cycled at least twice a day to maintain the temperature has not yet been disclosed that I've seen anywhere that's useful piece of information thank you very much I'm still very happy for them and want to support them.
I love getting Ambri updates. Christmas has arrived!
Keep believing in Santa Claus.!
Bill Gates’ company TerraPower raised $750 million in August 2022 for nuclear energy and medicine innovation. The electricity for batteries has to come from some place. TerraPower also wants to commercialize a molten salt reactor technology that can be used to provide carbon-free energy to heavy industrial operations, like water treatment plants, chemical processors and heavy industrial users. TerraPower is building the Traveling Wave Reactor, which will use mined uranium 30 times more efficiently and greatly reduces nuclear waste.
Gates has been a long time proponent of reactors that can run on spent uranium. It has been a long way
Great news, especially for South Africa where I live. SA also has considerable resources of antimony in the Gravelotte area although the company who own the deposits (Stibium Mining) lack the capital to re-open the underground mines where probably >40% of the antimony resources in the Western World exist.
Man , i love your concepts ❤️
Great news, thanks for the update.
My gut feeling has always been that they've nailed it. It's one of the rare start-ups that I actually follow closely, and this video is aligned with my former knowledge.
I was stoked enough by their concept to apply for a position with Ambri. Unfortunately, repeated attempts to establish contact with them all failed.
My own research has left one question unanswered. A year ago, Ambri partnered up with a gold mining company called Perpetua Resources inc., who basically mine antimony as a side yield. The video(*) seemed to suggest this would 1) be the sole source for antimony in the U.S. and 2) secure only about 30% of projected domestic future energy storage market demand, which makes me wonder whether antimony realistically is as abundant and not subject to globalisation and geopolitics as it’s portrayed to be.
(*) CZcams video: “Perpetua Webinar: August 2021 Perpetua and Ambri Powering the Future” (about 28 min. into the video.)
The three largest sources of antimony are Russia, China and Bolivia. Doesn't sound too hopeful. LOL
Good question. Most of Antimony supply is controlled by China. No it is not abundant. They are listed as the one of the critical elements which will face supply disruption by US department of Energy(not sure which department).
Yep. That's what I was thinking precisely. That's a lotta Antimony to scale out. If it comes from any mine in the world then there's no problem, but if it's localized they better hope they don't run into bottlenecks.
I saw this tech a few years back and found it very interesting. I'm happy to hear its use is ramping up.
It seems to be something to be excited about! Good one!
The other promising candidate for grid-specific storage is the liquid CO₂ battery. Together with Liquid-Metal, they are my top 2 picks with gravity storage being my 3rd choice.
The CO₂ battery uses all conventional components to pressurize CO₂ into liquid as the energy storage medium. The design occupies a lot of land footprint but its operating conditions aren't as extreme or exotic as Liquid-Metal.
The thing about ambri is they are exclusively geared towards grid storage. They appear to have no desire to offer a residential battery like the tesla power wall or enphase battery. I know it probably has to do with not many people being able to have their battery system in their backyard. I sure would love to have a 100kwh battery that's not $100k. Farms and remote charging stations that have solar charging the batteries would benefit greatly from this battery. People who live off grid could enjoy not having to shut things off when not in use.
I'm very pleased by their focus. Startups often fail because they can't focus and they don't have the resources to try to do several things at once. My expectation is that success in one market will allow them (or others) to extend the technology to other use cases.
Great content as always. The channel is much appreciated. Thanks a lot
Thanks Lester. Glad you enjoy it!
Thanks for the video. Eager to see this tech at work.
Germany has over 60GW of solar and the same in wind. We have a daily need of about 60 GW with a surplus of 10GW between 11 am to 1 pm and need gas powered electricity of 10 GW every day between 6 and 9 pm. That battery would be perfect.
I know, its been a long time coming. Dozy investors.
Great for off line Indian villages as well.
@@Jonnybravo6742 People try to get away from gas. Demand for heatpumps, PV and batteries have expoded. Power demand will double and I am confident as we now have a green party in the government. So, unwilligly Putin drives Germans into renewables in a unprecedented speed.
@@Jonnybravo6742 French? You mean the 52 nuclear plants from which 32 are under repair or unable to run due to lack of water cooling? Why France imports all that electricity from Germany to survive? You mean that France? That is responsibel for our exorbitant electricity prices?
@@Jonnybravo6742 France tries to build new nuclear power stations but they are unable to finish them for years now. All they have are plants from the seventies. PV and wind is build within months. Take that.
@@Jonnybravo6742 Why should it be better than last year where they had also to rely on german power imports?
A couple of years ago I saw a TED talk on youtube by Mr. Sadaway and he stated his goal for building this battery was to make it cheap as dirt. He understands technology and the market and each is necessary to make his battery come to fruition. They are using common elements to build the liquid metal battery that can be found in most places in the world as opposed to lithium and cobalt. This is what is needed for grid storage and we should not be leaning to lithium ion batteries for large scale storage as their charge and discharge rates will cause these batteries to have a much shorted life than liquid metal.
Thanks for your update on Ambri, which i bacame aware of in a very good Interview here on CZcams, some time ago.
I very much appreciate this channel as a reliable way to stay informed about the specific engineering innovation and material progress in the climate/energy struggle
This seems to be a good option for local grid scale storage.
Cheap but bulky is not a problem there and the need is to convert pv into short term storage. I doubt it will compete with lipo on the larger or smaller scale due to storage duration output and weight but in the middle there is a market that lipo simply can't touch them on. I'd buy their ipo.
i recall they had a big problem with sealing the connections that penetrate the cell walls. the internals are very corrosive and must not be exposed to the atmosphere. they were having issues of cracking around the electrodes especially due to expansion/ contraction when the battery goes from room temp to 500 c. maybe they solved that but over 20 - 40 years is it reliable.?
If they stay in operation all the time, hopefully they won't ever have to cool back down
Great update on an interesting energy storage market game changer👍👏
I have been waiting on this thing for over a decade.
so whats the cost per kwh of such a battery after being installed. Lion batteries made huge progress with a price below 100$ per kwh. Where does Ambri sit on that scale?
After watching videos and then following up on many of the large scale energy storage solutions over the last ten years, Ambri has always got me excited.
It is nice to see the technology mature after 12 years of refinement and the large scale production was the last step. Would it be too much to hope that our glorious energy providers look in to the feasibility of setting up a manufacturing plant here in Britain to help reduce overall cost and to enable us to take the lead on European sales.
I've split my sides laughing already at this thought train.
Boss video Dave, and well done Ambri for staying the course 👏👏👏
Cheers William. Much appreciated
Unfortunately not, looks like the new idiot in charge is putting her faith in fracking. It's almost as if these numbskulls want to take the UK back to the 19 th century....
I'm pretty certain brexit killed that idea.
@@autohmae which idea?
@@williamholmes7529 "to enable us to take the lead on European sales" long term they might run into tariff problems ?
very interesting, I think we all will be waiting for the next update video
As always .... Great ...thank you!
Ambri have always struck me as having one of the most promising grid scale batteries. I have high hopes for the LMB.
I'm an aerospace engineer who works in industrial control systems and automation.
I think you are absolutely right. Its the most promising battery technology for grid scale.
The biggest problem with existing lithium systems is the degradation. Just look at the battery in your phone or laptop to understand that issue. *PLUS* if we are ever going to get cars transitioned we need the lithium in the cars not bolted to the side of a house or rooftop or bolted to the ground. There simply isn't enough lithium supply to get that task done.
But there is one proviso with this system. It can't store and hold energy for days, weeks or months. As said it needs to be fully discharged and charged regularly for best performance. That means it will be really great for supporting the morning and after noon surges of the duck curve. *HOWEVER* if you wan to store solar energy from long summer days to consume in long winter nights its not so good. For that part of the energy storage task I think hydrogen is going to be huge, because hydrogen can be stored and it doesn't lose anything.
@@tonywilson4713 But hydrogen boils off when it is in liquid phase. Ammonia does not have this problem.
@@GreyDeathVaccine Everything boils of when in the liquid phase when the temperature isn't below the boiling point.
You've also never been around ammonia on an industrial site *I HAVE.* You need lots of safety sensors and sirens because by the time you can smell a leak you're already dying and in high enough concentrations you can't smell it because it immediately kills your sense of smell and you just drop dead.
EVERYTHING and I mean EVERYTHING in the inventory of industrial gases, liquids and solids has pluses and minuses. Its what makes the process of using them a slow grinding and at times frustrating experience.
I work in control systems and if threw the pressure sensor catalogue from a company like Emerson at you it would kill you. I once joked to the rep we had that they had over 30,000 different variations and he said he thought it was over 40,000 AND THAT was just their pressure sensors. In those variations were things for hydrogen, ammonia, gaseous methane, cryogenic methane (liquids), acids, slurries and a whole host of tother stuff.
@@tonywilson4713 As an engineer I’m sure you know that every design has trade-offs. For instance phone batteries are often designed for maximum talk time on a single charge. The manufacturer may say: their phone gives you eight hours of talk time, but we give you 10! Except that may mean that the battery’s life is reduced by months. Compare this to an automotive manufacturer who has provided a warranty on the longevity of the battery. They will do whatever it takes so the battery hits that lifespan. This might include using different chemistries and limiting charge discharge rates on the cells.
@@jeffg4570 You can pretty much do whatever you like but you can't change the reality of the chemistry you are using.
The chemistry is the chemistry. You can maybe change the efficiency through geometry like they did with Teslas latest cells or change the operating temperatures which is what all the car guys do, but even those things are limited.
A really good channel to watch about energy stuff is the "Illinois Energy Prof."
FYI - I did go to Illinois but did aerospace and graduated before he was there. That said his channel is till one of the most informative channels on energy there is.
Interesting but perhaps even more interesting is the aluminium/sulphur battery the same people claim has been developed. A company, Avanti, has been set up by Sodaway to take this new technology forward. If it performs as described I could see one in my garage.
Looking forward to a video on this Dave.
Keep up your great work.
Yep, they made this new derived tech that seems unreported
Aluminum Sulfur is what I thought they were going for when I first heard about them.
It would also be a hell of a lot cheaper than Antimony at scale.
Thank you. Hopefully it takes off in a big way
Nice vid. A video on Boston Metal's steel production method would be nice too.
Watching the first video on this Dave, I was impressed by its high number of charging cycles claimed without degradation and use of cheap and readily available materials. Nothing here has changed my mind that I think it's an emerging winner in large scale energy storage. All go for AMBRI ! Will look to invest when possible !
With those temperatures they can easily claim to have the hottest tech in the battery storage market.😀
You did make a video, and I am making a big smile because I really liked the team and the idea with this one 😀
great update, thank you
Question: what is response time of Ambris batteries per grid needs.. means how quickly it can discharge or discharge .. what is the power output or input of these batteries ?
Do different battery chemistries normally have a measurable difference for this? My uneducated guess is that all batteries would be roughly the same
As this video shows, it is designed for grid storage, a rate of up to 1/4 C, which means a discharge in 4 hours.
In essence, charging during the day on solar and discharge in the afternoon / evening peak in demand.
That's what (for example) California needs.
I was surprised at the requirement of 2 charge re-charge cycles per day to maintain that 80% efficiency rating. This seems to put it more in frequency regulation and less in peak shifting which I would have thought needs a daily cycle average.
Yeah that was the kicker for me.
We don't know how much the efficiency drops if unit gets cycled once per day. If it drops to 70%-75% or can be mitigated with more insulation then this isnt a big problem. As a battery it is well suited to rapid demand changed. As the cost of electrical generation of renewables drops more and more the loss of energy to storage efficiency will be far less significant than cost. Other technologies for seasonal storage are critical and this isnt it.
Frequency Regulation Ultra Short Peak Supply are where the big money is now and all battery tech needs all the "return" it can get to keep going.
Better insulation should get the system to maintain temperature with only a daily cycle. The $64k question is cost per MWHr stored?
@@matthewhuszarik4173 Notice they say need at least twice a day to maintain temp and then talk about going for long term storage. Normally long term is consider more that one day. So a little concerning there. If you have to start heating to get back up above 500 degrees it is going to drop round trip more than a little.
Nice video, I love learning about new storage tech. XCel Energy announced in August they are also installing a system as a pilot project in Colorado. Microsoft also announced a similar project in September for data centers.
However, the video has an error stating the battery needs two cycles per day to maintain it's high temperature. Ambri states on their website, "These systems like to be used - a full charge/discharge cycle at least every two days will keep the system at its operating temperature and higher duty cycles will not increase degradation."
Thanks for the update Dave!...The investor viewpoint at the end is also appreciated.
Thank you. Much appreciated :-)
If their tech works well and the manufacturing is as simple as Sadoway claims in the interviews, their timeline for the terrascale datacenter project is not ambitious. In fact, they seem to have removed references to that project from their homepage.
The UL certification and the additional investors and partnerships are good signs. They need to increase production very rapidly if they want to compete against the big boys. Producing a couple dozen MWh per year by 2024 is not going to be enough.
It takes an enormous amount of energy to refine antimony from ore. Fossil fuel energy, to make batteries that have to be charged by heating ( more energy) to store energy. I would like to know how it is planned that the making of antimony will become a green process. Ceramics production also require a lot of energy. Will the life of the battery create an energy neutral battery manufacturing process. Sound like rich people figuring out a new energy market that still poisons the planet, while they make you believe it doesn't.
This is simply a matter of Life Cycle Analysis. There is no reason that antimony production has to be done with dirty energy. Likewise with ceramics. As far as "poisoning" the planet, we already know that continued use of fossil fuel is wrecking 100% of the planet. In order to stop that, we need to electrify everything. If that involves doing damage to 0.0001% of the surface of the planet, that is a very good tradeoff.
Thanks for following up.
Great news, thank you, was wondering how they were doing.
How does this compare to the saltx technology in terms of capacity, duration of storage etc? It seems to me this is better for peak shaving and shorter storage but I would like to see some numbers
Yeah I think I might trying to do an energy storage comparison article myself based on these proposed outputs for more in depth stuff at some point.
@@KManAbout that would be super great. Can you keep me posted?
Really interesting that it needs to cycle twice a day. I wonder how long it can retain its heat, where maybe it can peak when solar dips off, and charge with wind overnight to peak again in the morning, but that would leave a sizable gap where it would need to stay at temperature. It'll be interesting to see what it's operational scope ends up being as part of a large scale storage solution
This was what I was wondering about. The lack of flexibility in cycling. I thought maybe they can make their system more modular, with each module at different levels of cycling. Or pair it with other batteries, that have more flexibility in cycling.
I'd imagine it mostly comes down to the size. The bigger it is the longer it'll retain it's heat thanks to the square-cube law.
Also interesting question is a if it lost such heat that environment around should be heated as hell.
Happy to see Reliance in there.
Thank you so much
i'd be reluctant to invest in anything based on anti-money
lol I'm hoping that's a pun on ''Antimony'', an element.
Interesting; unfortunately it is quite difficult to get true lay of the land on technical limitations of these schemes. Even the most bright an idea sometimes has a dark technical hurdle they are carefully avoiding. Thanks for the update - remember fusion companies raise hundreds of millions as well, so being able to raise money is not 100% correlated with market success
Ambri technology have been refining this system for more than a decade. I have been following them for years now and it's pleasing to see the market success they deserve is finally starting to happen.
Sadoway says " If you want a dirt cheap battery, make it out of dirt".
I applaud him highly for his and his team's achievements. I also have no barrow to push other than that this is brilliant technology.
I want to see that first commercial scale project, and have someone interview the owners in a year or two, then see some updated pricing, and maybe cost of materials.
thank you for doing the revisits.
My pleasure :-)
Great update thanks
Sounds very positive. We desperately need the storage issue sorted out quickly. But what is the cost of these liquid metal batteries? - or did I miss it in the video?
Cheap. Made of common stuff.
they claim that it's cheap, but no numbers have been released AFAIK.
These do seem like a pretty promising bit of tech and seem to be using readily available chemistry and will be interesting to see how they do in the future.
Still think the only way in nuclear as the main source of power with wind and solar to add to the grid. Wind has a lot of problems with having a short life span and now all those blades have to be dumped in landfill because they are difficult to recycle. And all the birds they kill is a big issue.
I dunno what you consider "a short life span". There's a lot of wind turbines that are over 20 years old.
Progress is being made on non-landfilling used blades. And it has been discovered that bird mortality can be sharply reduced by painting at least one blade a dark color to make it more visible to birds.
This looks hopeful and not just a shimmer. Good on Ambri.
Don Sadoway. Canadian boy. Nice goin', eh. Give 'er.
As currently designed, I think these Ambri batteries may not be cost competitive. I would be much more impressed if the individual cells were much larger. This would make energy loss per unit volume much less of a problem and make these batteries better for long term storage.
I agree with others that supply chain problems could greatly increase the price of antimony if these batteries were deployed in large numbers. Obviously, Ambri agrees as they have negotiated a contract to open an old gold mine out west. Has that mine been reopened and how many batteries can be made if it is opened?
I love the tech but I am skeptical that these batteries will out compete the myriad of alternative new batteries. For example, the CO2 battery is best long term storage system as it uses existing machinery, is efficient, does not involve very high or low temperatures, and will operate for years with minimal maintenance.
It's hard to argue that a spinning turbine needs minimal maintenance compared to a box with molten metal in it...
Long term and short term storage have different requirements, I think it makes sense to have different solutions too.
Re: battery chemistry, it is my understanding that you could change the metals used if needed. But maybe it would take years of development, not just plug and play
As always it has to compete with other storage solutions, current and emerging. In the end it's cost that determine if it is a success.
You’re absolutely right. And a big factor in determining cost is scale. The question is can Ambri scale up fast enough to get the cost of their battery down to compete with the scaling that’s going on now with Lithium Ion batteries?
I hope they can. It will be interesting.
Loving your work. Thanks.
Thanks Luke. Much appreciated
Reliance office 20 mins from my house. It's my dream to get a job in this company. Awesome company. Treats and pays well. Love Mukesh Sir. 👍👌
I think this may be a very important part of a system. But because it needs to be worked hard to remain continuously available something else may be needed to supply days or weeks of power when the sun doesn’t shine. For example.
Perhaps not though. What happens if a fully charged battery cools and solidifies? Is the stored power mostly lost or does it just need some time to come back on line?
Given the description of the process, most of the stored energy should be recoverable - the elements aren't going to homogenize themselves in the process of freezing - but a substantial external energy output would be needed to remelt the battery.
The point of those batteries is as a day to day storage, there usually aren't days where the sun doesn't shine if you are not living in the arctic circle.
@@_aullik What about cloudy days, that's literally one of fhe biggest problems with solar
@@deedoodeedoo6382 Clouds more often than not affect small areas which is just not a problem. When there is large cloud cover over an entire country then you have greatly reduced solar power that you have to compensate for, however clouds often come with wind.
@@_aullik The clouds would still lower the overall yield of the system which is also used to supply energy for current needs, not only for storage. Implementing enough redundancy is not financially feasible. The wind could work I guess, but it's not a rule that clouds == wind. There still needs to be something else in the mix, a more dynamic nuclear powerplant?
That requirement for a daily full discharge appears to make it useful for *long* term storage. In some locations you may go a week without wind or solar, but this can only give you a day. Better than nothing, better than lithium, but not enough.
Think you missed a *not*
I think this battery doesn't attempt or claim to be the only grid storage, and that's okay. If all these batteries do is shift around energy within a day, that's already enough to get us to a significant proportion of renewable energy. Then the stuff that's good at long term storage can be used only for its niche need, rather than shouldering the burden of short and long term storage
Should be ideal for a grid-connected storage facility, which is mostly what's needed
Thanks again, very informative.
I've been following this technology. Thanks for up date .
I thought when I 1st saw this it was an unique concept that made a lot of sense.
Good update. With all these new contracts, I think it would be useful to also give the installed cost pr kWh so that we can compare with other technologies.
Ambri at least makes sense. Balancing the grid using nuclear is nonsense, whereas a grid scale battery system must be cheaper and quicker. It's just a matter of which one.
I don't see the problem with nuclear to be honest. The nuclear heat to latent heat salt storage technologies seem to make a lot of sense. Both of those technologies make absolute sense in my book.
Batteries and nuclear power stations don't provide the same services. It's not a matter or either/or but how much of each is technically sensible and cost-effective. Batteries don't _make_ any electricity at all for a start. A low carbon grid certainly has some batteries but probably also has some nuclear, especially at higher latitudes, where solar is a factor of 10 worse in winter compared to summer. Batteries are good for frequency stabilisation(seconds) and short-duration balancing (diurnal, up to a week or so), but much longer than that and they won't be cheaper than nuclear per k/Wh. NP is £10,000/kW, Battery £100/kWh to build. So run your NP for 50 years@90%CF and that's £0.02/kWh. Use your battery 5000 times and you get the same price. 5000 cycles is 13 years at once/day. Use it once/week and it's got to last 96 years to do 5000 cycles. Lets say it lasts 20 years (1040 cycles): that's £0.10 per kWh so a factor of 5 more expensive. Try using it for seasonal balancing and it's £2.50/kWh (125 times more expensive) which is completely barmy. So, as you can see, the utilisation pattern is critical in determining which tech is cheaper per kWh (and the lifetime is extremely important too). Maybe your NP only gets to run half the time - that's twice the price per kWh, and so on.
@@xxwookey I worked as an engineer in the nuclear industry for 32 years. Batteries store energy from wind or solar. You are absolutely wrong about the effects of cold in the UK. Current batteries can recycle far more and the proposed Ambri battery appears to recycle for far more again. In grid scale energy storage you do not look at costs the way you are.
@@_aullik I worked in the nuclear industry for 32 years. My concern is over the lies told by UKAEA over the safety of nuclear plants. There are reports on childhood cancers in West Cumbria and the Springfields site near Preston which have been suppressed or changed upon publication. In addition releases into the Irish Sea from Sellafield have always been under reported.
@@steverichmond7142 How can I be "wrong about the effects of cold" when I didn't say anything about cold (or hot for that matter?). Batteries store energy from any source, not just wind and solar :-) They are just as useful for storing a cheap nuclear kWh at 3am as a cheap solar kWh at noon.
My costings are indeed simplistic, but just pointing out that costs per kWh from batteries can be both more or less than costs per kWh from nuclear - it depends on usage patterns. Obviously the real market value of a kWh, stored or otherwise, can vary greatly by time of day and with the weather so a much more elaborate analysis could be done. I was just looking at basic amortisation of costs over lifetime.
Is it just me? Or is this a static solution and won't need lugging around very often.
Great presentation as usual.
Thank you.
They are the size of a shipping container and are meant for local grid & large operators.
Be great for Indian off grid villages - but they dont have the money - maybe govt can invest.
Hi Kevin. Yes. It is only for stationary energy storage.
I remember seeing a TedTalk by Prof Sadoway and was blown away by his charm and charisma, as well as his no-nonsense approach to the actual science involved. I have periodically checked up on how Ambri was doing and it does seem to have been a very up and down progress. So it's good to see that it finally seems to be coming together. The more different types of energy storage that make it to market, the better because it's obvious that different scenarios require very different solutions. Thanks for sharing.
Do you know if they will have something which can be used for rv applications which are in the 2000 amp hour range.