alphabet turns to molten salt to store clean energy - battery energy storage system

Using huge salt cans and antifreeze under the code name "Malta", "Google's parent company Alphabet is joining Tesla and some small companies, these companies are developing a cost-effective way to store wind and solar energy to expand renewable energy and combat climate change.
Alphabet's Xresearch lab is developing a cutting
Edge molten salt technology, designed to store wind and solar energy for longer periods of time at less cost than giant lithium
Ion batteriesTesla and other companies are designing.
Electricity storage is considered critical to the expansion of renewable energy in the United StatesS.
Help combat climate change and lift America out of poverty. S.
Stay away from power plants that use fossil fuels.
The amount of electricity generated by wind turbines and solar panels depends on the weather, so the flow of electricity they produce is not constant.
Some of them are wasted when people don't use too much electricity.
Storage allows the use of wind and solar energy when it is most needed, not just when it is sunny or windy.
In this way, when people use a lot of electricity, they can use stored renewable energy instead of special power plants that use natural gas.
More and more states, including New York and California, have climate targets, requiring a percentage of the state's electricity to come from storage.
Today, power companies that use power storage rely heavily on large batteries per ton.
Tesla has been developing largescale lithium-
For several years.
Some power companies in California are using the battery, and they may also be combined with offshore wind power proposed in Massachusetts this week.
But the only way to store power is not to use large batteries.
"There are multiple competitors (
For power storage technology)
It includes pumping water and electricity, compressed air, flywheel, and batteries, "said Donald Sadoway, a materials chemist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, whose research focuses on energy use and efficiency.
"Power storage is very complex, not a single solution to meet the needs. ”Pumped hydro-
Electricity is considered an energy storage because the water stored in the reservoir will generate electricity when it flows out through the turbine.
Compressed air works in a similar way, generating electricity when it is released from the air tank.
A rotating mechanical device that slows down and releases energy when power is needed.
Malta stores wind and solar energy by converting electricity into thermal energy.
The heat storage is in molten salt, and there is a large bucket of liquid antifreeze in the cold storage.
When power is needed, the hot engine converts the hot and cold energy back to power.
When there is a wider temperature difference between hot and cold buckets, the electricity generation efficiency in the system is the highest.
Craig Turch, a scientist at the thermal system research and development team at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, said that foreign materials are often needed to maintain high temperatures, but Malta seems to be using ordinary materials. Similar hot-
SaidTurchi, which has nothing to do with X, said cold storage technology was developed with hot water instead of molten salt, but salt seems to be more energy efficient.
According to X, salt-
The cost of thermal energy-based storage may be many times lower than that of battery storage, as most of the necessary materials
Steel tanks, salt and antifreeze-
Good quality and cheap.
The company said its Malta technology could charge thousands of times for up to 40 years, several times longer than today's battery.
Sadoway, who is also not associated with X, said that compared to other power storage technologies, it is too early to see how Malta will compete in terms of cost, as the company has not publicly provided any cost data.
"The competition between energy storage and lithium is very fierce --
"About service life and safety," he said . ".
X declined to comment.
Turch said he and other NREL scientists will "support" X in the details of the Malta project.
"Our solar energy thermoelectric group has a great advantage in thermal energy storage technology and we have been focusing on new developments," he said . ".