Solar energy has been around for a while, but it has historically been prohibitively expensive. However, costs have recently been dropping sharply due to new photovoltaic (PV) thin-film chemistry and manufacturing techniques. Some solar companies are reporting PV panels for under $2 a watt which is a four-fold cost reduction from the $8 it was only a few years ago. These solar power facts make it clear that the convergence of these and other solar PV technology advances with a new deep-storage battery technology has profound implications for the solar power house and our dependence on fossil fuels for electricity generation.
After 10 years of research and testing, a new generation of cost-effective, deep-storage battery has arrived that’s small and safe enough to sit in your basement and power your home. It may be the single most important breakthrough to date for the potential availability of plentiful solar power electricity. The battery breakthrough comes from a company called Ceramatec.
The essence of their huge battery breakthrough is that high energy density (a lot of power storage) can now be achieved safely at operating temperatures below 90 degrees C temperatures which allow solid components instead of hot liquid. It’s an amazing breakthrough because the most energy-dense batteries currently available are huge containers of super-hot molten sodium, swirling around at about 600 degrees. At these temperatures the material is highly corrosive and toxic – conditions very unsuitable for use in the home.
Ceramatec says its new generation of battery, about the size of a refrigerator, will store about 20 to 40 kilowatt hours of energy for 3,650 daily discharge/recharge cycles over 10 years of battery life. With the batteries expected to sell for approximately $2,000, this translates to less than 3 cents per kilowatt hour battery cost over its life. Conventional power from the grid typically costs in the neighborhood of 8 cents per kilowatt hour, and typical deep-cycling lead/acid batteries are only good for a few hundred cycles so they last for only a year or so.
Ceramatec’s new battery technology also has profound ramifications for the U.S. electrical grid which is an inefficient, aging relic of a century-old approach to energy, and is a weak link in national security in an age of terrorism. Taking a load off the grid through electricity production and storage at home could extend the life of the system and avoid the expenditure of hundreds of billions dollars to make it “smart.” However, centralized management of the energy grid requires the use of computers, which creates security issues like hackers and terrorists. Also, large-scale power generation from centralized power plants creates the opportunity for regional grid blackouts caused by a “point failure” on the grid. The opportunity with this new battery technology is to ease pressure on the grid and move homeowners closer to greater energy independence.
With small-scale solar power electrical generation and battery storage taking place at millions of individual homes these problems could be either eliminated or significantly reduced. Can you imagine anything more secure than generating energy with the sun at your own solar power house, and having a safe, cost-effective way to store it? It’s the ultimate in security, and the ultimate in control.”
Ceramatec indicates that they are close to moving from initial scale-up toward a commercial product, and this presents an unparalleled opportunity for home generation of solar power electricity.
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