Gates, Bezos bet on flow battery technology, a potential rival to big bets on lithium-ion11 Dec 2019 06:27
"Right now we're only looking at energy storage that are around four hours," says Daniel Finn-Foley, head of the energy storage team at Wood Mackenzie. "And lithium ion can still compete at four hours. But as we move into the next phase of the energy transition, four hours isn't going to cut it anymore. That's why all these investors are asking if there's a longer-duration technology that scales better than lithium ion. This is where flow batteries come in."
"You can follow the money," Finn-Foley said. "All the investors are smelling it."
As opportunity inherent in clean batteries turn to necessity, investors will increasingly look for technologies that can help make vulnerable regions of the world resilient in future energy crises. Part of this happening will depend on regulatory policy and the point at which the U.S. sets 100% clean energy goals.
In the future, according to Finn-Foley, utilities will have the opportunity to aggregate and distribute alternative energy assets from homes and businesses — solar, demand response, and battery energy storage — to create virtual power plants, in effect mimicking conventional generation through unconventional means.
“We’ll start to see residential business models all over the place,” he said. “For now, it’s still very hard to express the value that that resiliency provides, but the day is coming.”
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/10/tesla-gm-bet-big-on-lithium-ion-but-gates-bezos-fund-flow-battery.html
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