DailyDirt: Better (Bigger) Batteries

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Battery technology is getting better all the time, but unfortunately not quite at the same pace as Moore's law. While some folks lament the bottleneck of pocket-sized batteries that limit the operation of a phone or laptop to just a few hours (or a couple days on standby), some bigger batteries out there are limiting the growth of renewable energy use. Here are just a few battery projects that could solve some larger scale energy problems.

• One of the world's largest lithium manganese batteries will be tested in the UK. This 6 megawatt battery installation should be ready to produce electricity in 2016, and it'll help make renewable energy more compatible with conventional electricity infrastructure. [url]
• IBM has been working on lithium-air batteries for its Battery 500 project that aims to make an electric car battery capable of driving 500 miles. However, the researchers predict that we won't see a commercial battery based on this technology until after 2020. [url]
• Grid scale batteries are already in use, but newer battery technologies could make it much more economical to use renewable energy sources in existing power stations. Still, it will be a few more years before these new battery designs prove their safety and reliability. [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

Filed Under: battery, battery 500 project, electrical grid, energy, energy storage, infrastructure, renewable energy
Companies: ibm