The world's first usable thermal battery: 20 years of life, 80% lower cost than lithium batteries

In order to improve the stability of electricity consumption, South Australia is committed to installing various grid-level energy storage systems, from lithium-ion battery energy storage systems, pumped storage power stations to compressed air energy storage plants, almost everything is inclusive, and now South Australia may have a new force in energy storage. CCT Energy Storage, a local energy technology company, claims to have created the world's first usable thermal battery. In addition to having a 20-year service life, the cost is 60-80 lower than the current lithium battery. %.

The thermal battery system is called TED (Thermal Energy Device), which is a modular device that can be large or small in scale. The operating principle of the battery is simple and easy to understand. Any electricity such as energy, fossil fuel, etc. heats the molten silicon in it, and then uses a heat engine to convert the heat into energy that can be output to the outside. Finally, it can be used to heat water and convert it into alternating current.

Foreign media NEWATLAS reported that the current standard capacity of TED is about 1.2MWh, and all parts and equipment can basically be packed in a 6-meter container. Serge Bondarenko, general manager of CCT, said that the scale of TED can be large or small, and its application range can be as small as 5KW commercial scale or as large as MW grid energy storage system.

CCT is quite optimistic about the application potential of TED. Its storage energy is 12 times that of lead-acid batteries and 6 times that of lithium-ion batteries. The durability performance is not bad. Generally speaking The storage capacity of a lithium battery will drop to 80% after 5,000 times of charging and discharging, and after 3000 cycles of TED, the storage capacity will not decline, and compared with the metal of lithium ion batteries, there is a problem of decay. After the molten silicon is recycled , The heat storage performance will increase instead.

The company estimates that TED will last as long as 20 years. Bondarenko pointed out that if people insist on decommissioning the TED system, the equipment is also 100% recyclable and there will be no Environmental Pollution.

Bondarenko said that the cost-benefit ratio of TED has a very high advantage. Among them, he took Tesla’s battery pack as an example, claiming that under the same energy storage capacity requirements, the cost of TED is lower than Tesla 60-80%, the floor area is also smaller. And although the temperature of molten silicon is quite high (the melting point of silicon exceeds 1400°C), consumers do not have to worry too much about the safety of the equipment. If there is a problem with the battery, just turn off the equipment and let the molten silicon cool down, and the problem can be solved again Restart heating.

Currently, CCT is working hard to commercialize its products. It has already cooperated with companies such as Lonsdale, Stillmark, and MIBA. It is expected that in the future Lonsdale will provide more than 10 Group TED equipment, and hope to increase to more than 200 groups in 2020, while CCT will provide Stillmark thermal battery equipment, MIBA Group can exclusively manufacture and sell TED in Denmark, Sweden and the Netherlands.

Bondarenko said that if TED operations and promotion go well, after being well received in the industry, in the future, he will strive to increase the equipment scale to 100MWh within a few years.