Multi-day energy storage to be demonstrated in California

Form Energy has been awarded a $30 million grant from the California Energy Commission to deploy the state’s first multi-day energy storage system.

Form Energy, a pioneer of iron-air energy storage, is to deploy a 5MW/500MWh system at the site of a Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) substation in Mendocino County.

The project, which is expected to come online by 2025, is aimed to demonstrate the effectiveness of multi-day energy storage to help California meet its renewable energy and zero carbon resource goals, while ensuring electric reliability and affordability.

“Long-duration and multi-day energy storage are critical to achieving California’s clean energy goals,” says David Hochschild, Chair of the California Energy Commission.

“Just like the state has done through its pioneering policies and investments to rapidly scale project deployment and jobs in the solar, lithium-ion battery storage and other industries, California is continuing to accelerate the path to market for emerging technologies that are critically needed to address climate change, air pollution, and equity in our state and globally.”

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The Commission is supporting the project through its Long Duration Energy Storage (LDES) programme, which is aimed to accelerate the implementation of non-lithium technologies offering 8+ hours of energy storage.

Form Energy will use the grant funds to develop and operate the project, and PG&E will provide the land and an interconnection point at the substation site.

Form Energy’s technology, offering storage and discharge capacity for 100 hours at system costs declared competitive with legacy power plants is based in essence on reversible rusting.

In discharge the battery takes in oxygen from the air and converts iron metal to rust.

While charging the process is reversed with the application of an electric current converting the rust back to iron and the oxygen being released.

Each individual battery module containing about 50 1m-tall cells is about the size of a side by side washing machine and dryer. The modules are grouped in enclosures, which in turn are grouped in megawatt scale blocks.

Current projects under development include a 1.5MW/150MWh system for Great River Energy in Minnesota, which is due to come online in 2025.

Others with a 2026 timeline are a 5MW/500MWh system for Dominion Energy in Virginia, 10MW/1,000MWh systems for Xcel Energy in Colorado and Minnesota and for NYSERDA in New York, and a 15MW/1,500MWh system for Georgia Power in Georgia.

Construction also is under way of the company’s first high volume manufacturing facility, Form Factory 1, in Weirton, West Virginia.

The first manufacturing and assembly of the iron-air battery systems is expected in the second half of 2024, with the annual production capacity ramping up to 500MW in full operation.

Originally published on Power Engineering International.