PESWiki.com -- Pure Energy Systems Wiki: Finding and facilitating breakthrough clean energy technologies.

Donations to PES are needed and greatly appreciated. Thank you.

Directory:Ceramatec's Sodium Sulfur Battery

From PESWiki

Jump to: navigation, search

<< A Top 100 Energy Technology >>

Page first featured August 25, 2009

This prototype battery, when scaled up, could store enough energy to power a house for most of a day.

Quoting from EcoGeek:

A company in Salt Lake City, Utah is developing a battery system for home-based electricity storage that may make energy storage much easier and more economical for off-the-grid homes as well as helping to improve the efficiency of grid-tied homes.

The technology being developed by Ceramatec is a new variation on sodium sulfur batteries, an existing technology with very high energy density, but best suited for very large scale, industrial style installations such as grid storage. However, these batteries have the potential to bring the advantages of sodium sulfur batteries to a much wider range of uses.

Currently, sodium sulfur batteries operate at very high temperatures - above 300 degrees C (572 degrees F), and the components in them are corrosive. This isn't the sort of thing that you would want in your home, and, for efficiency, they work best at a much larger size; they aren't really at a home-scale size. On the other hand, there are some advantages to sodium sulfur batteries. They use very common and inexpensive materials, which makes them attractive. And the high energy density means that a small battery is all that is needed for a large amount of energy storage.

The Ceramatec battery separates the sulfur and sodium from each other with a thin ceramic membrane which allows electricity to be stored while operating at a much lower temperature. Ceramatec envisions a refrigerator-sized unit that would remain below 98 degrees C (208 degrees F), the melting point of sodium. Keeping the sodium solid makes for a much safer battery. The battery could store 20 kWh worth of energy, either from local, sustainable sources such as wind or solar, or from off-peak recharging from the grid, much like a plug-in hybrid car recharges when the grid demand is low.

"Ceramatec says its new generation of battery would deliver a continuous flow of 5 kilowatts of electricity over four hours, with 3,650 daily discharge/recharge cycles over 10 years. With the batteries expected to sell in the neighborhood of $2,000, that translates to less than 3 cents per kilowatt hour over the battery's life. Conventional power from the grid typically costs in the neighborhood of 8 cents per kilowatt hour." (Daily Herald)

1 About
2 Coverage
- 2.1 In the News
- 2.2 Comments
3 Contact
4 See also

About

Official Website

http://www.ceramatec.com

Patents

Profiles

Company: Ceramatec

"Ceramatec focuses on the development of innovative products and new businesses in the fields of advanced materials and electrochemistry. The company is engaged in several major areas of research and development and is recognized internationally with an extensive patent portfolio covering its achievements in solid-state and aqueous ionic-conducting ceramic materials.

"Ceramatec’s distinguished technology development capabilities have been proven with a wide range of projects ranging from concept development to pilot line production." [1]

Coverage

In the News

Google News > Ceramatec - extant.; below is a small sampling.

Featured / Top 100: Storage > Batteries > Sodium Sulfur >
Ceramatec Revolutionizing Energy Storage Technology - A company in Salt Lake City is receiving widespread coverage for developing a battery system based on sodium sulfur for residential and commercial applications that may make energy storage much easier and more economical providing the tipping point to make renewables feasible. (PESWiki; August 25, 2009)

Ceramatec: Bringing Distributed Power Storage to Your Home' - A company in Salt Lake City, Utah is developing a battery system for home-based electricity storage that may make energy storage much easier and more economical for off-the-grid homes as well as helping to improve the efficiency of grid-tied homes. (EcoGeek; Aug. 17, 2009)

The Key to the Battery-Powered House - Scientists have created a small-scale prototype battery that could store enough energy to power a house for most of the day. Is this small disk the key to cost-effective solar-powered homes? (Popular Mechanics; July 2009)