US Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm said yesterday that flow batteries are “good for grid storage” as her Department of Energy (DoE) announced funding to support domestic manufacturing for the energy storage technology.
Malta Inc, developer of a grid-scale electro-thermal energy storage technology, has closed a Series B funding round, raising US$50 million from investors that include Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz.
A large-scale vanadium redox flow battery (VRFB) demonstration project in California which has been providing grid services on a commercial basis will now also trial the use of the technology for microgrid applications.
The lion’s share of new funding announced this week to help scale-up potentially disruptive technologies by the Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy (ARPA-E) of the US government Department of Energy (DOE) will go to battery and smart grid technologies.
‘Liquid metal’ battery technology developed as a potential low-cost competitor for lithium-ion looks set to be used at a data centre under development near Reno, Nevada.
While lithium-ion continues to dominate big project announcements worldwide, three providers of long-duration non-lithium battery technologies have claimed various milestones in commercialisation.
Nilar, a Sweden-headquartered producer of nickel metal hydride chemistry batteries aimed to compete with lithium-ion and lead acid, will receive €47 million (US$55.45 million) in funding from the European Investment Bank (EIB).
Whatever technology or strategy announcements come from Tesla’s Battery Day, speculation that the company will reduce purchases of battery cells from partners as a consequence is incorrect, CEO Elon Musk has said.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said that a new recycling facility for lithium-ion batteries helps create quality jobs and support clean energy as the state “builds back stronger” from the COVID-19 crisis.
