14 DAY TRIAL // investigators announce the development of a new type of electrode, which could make it possible for experts to design and construct batteries capable of grid-level energy storage.
Based on the clever use of nanoparticles, these electrodes could set the foundation for a new generation of batteries that would be able to store excess energy produced by alternative-energy power plants during peaks, and then gradually release it during production lows.
The easiest way to understand this principle is by referring to solar energy. An installation harnessing sunlight would naturally produce more electricity during a sunny day, while its productivity would massively decline during the night, or when clouds obscure the Sun.
When this happens, the power plant's output drops significantly, and less electricity is put into the grid. What researchers want to do is be able to establish an output level for such a facility, and then maneuver around this value by using batteries.
In other words, the excess energy produced during a sunny day will be stored in these devices, and then released when the Sun is obscured, or during the night. This will ensure a constant flow of electricity from that particular power plant into the grid.
This is important because spikes in solar or wind energy production could result in over-flooding the grid, causing it to fail at its weakest points. This is to be avoided at all costs, hence the new research.
The team went about creating the new battery design by using nanoscale particles of a special copper compound. The resulting electrodes are extremely well-suited for energy storage, and can also be manufactured cheaply for wide-scale use.
After the design was complete, the team put the new battery through more than 40,000 full charge/discharge cycles, and the devices held remarkably. This means that they can be used for prolonged periods of time, at minimal maintenance costs.
“At a rate of several cycles per day, this electrode would have a good 30 years of useful life on the electrical grid,” Stanford materials science and engineering graduate student Colin Wessells explains.
He is the also the lead author of a new paper describing the findings. The work is published in this week's issue of the top journal Nature Communications.
“That is a breakthrough performance – a battery that will keep running for tens of thousands of cycles and never fail,” paper coauthor and associate professor of materials science and engineering Yi Cui concludes.