New Battery and Energy Storage Technologies

Reviewed by Stavros Skourakis, Technical Support Engineer (April 2024)

As the world both switches to renewable energy and addresses countries in energy poverty, new battery technology becomes essential for renewable energy storage. Fossil fuels, while problematic in their side effects, offer easy storage. Battery technologies, however, face significant hurdles in energy storage, but the industry is innovating and experimenting to overcome this.

Batteries contain metals and chemicals that store potential energy for later conversion into electricity. Similar principles are in other types of energy storage: burning wood and oxygen to release their stored chemical reaction potential as heat or compressing diesel fuel, which reacts with oxygen in the air to release heat energy.

There are different battery technologies, but they typically contain two pieces of metal (electrodes) separated by a material that can conduct electricity (the electrolyte) and a porous separator plate within the electrolyte. When an electrical circuit connects the electrodes, this creates a voltage differential, which lets electrons flow in a current as electrical energy.

Of the two electrodes, the anode sends electrons, and the cathode (of a different type of metal) receives these charged particles. This is due to the electrolyte reacting with the anode to release electrons into the circuit and dissolve anode material into solution with the electrolyte. Simultaneously, the cathode receives electrons from the circuit and newly solidified material from its own reaction with the electrolyte.

When the electrodes have no more material to exchange with the electrolyte, the battery is drained and the current flow stops; the chemicals have depleted their stored potential energy.

Achieving fully net-zero, climate-friendly electricity generation will require massive innovations in energy storage technologies. Existing electrical grids are meant for immediate transmission of electricity from the generator to the end user. This is more complicated with renewable energy sources such as wind or solar since they have inconsistent supply. This requires the use of renewable energy storage, at electric vehicle batteries and grid scale, which presents a host of challenges.

These batteries need to manage varying demand, integrate with existing distribution systems, keep reserves to mitigate power outages, and have economic life expectancies. They must operate sufficiently in cold temperature environments, something rechargeable batteries can struggle with. This scale of energy storage also means great demand for battery storage - facilities with long rows of batteries, complete with heat and safety management systems.

Finally, energy storage requires a tremendous supply of battery minerals. New battery technology is starting to rise to these challenges, though.

New battery technology emerges every day as consumers choose greener products and businesses innovate through competition in this growing business. Two chief application areas are Electric Vehicle (EV) batteries and grid storage batteries.

Electric Vehicles (EVs) continue to become increasingly affordable and the country’s charging infrastructure system continues to build out. Increasing the EV distance range and reducing charging times are the main technological challenges to meet in the goal of making EVs more desirable than traditional combustion engine automobiles.

Recent developments in EV battery technologies include:

• Reducing Cobalt Use for Cathodes: Cobalt is very prevalent as a source mineral for cathodes in lithium-ion batteries, but its mining has a history of environmental destruction and human rights abuses. Alternative, more socially conscious battery material approaches include lithium-iron-phosphate cathodes and organic materials. These face challenges such as energy density, which determines their performance, so they require further development to become viable economic energy storage technologies
• Batteries as Structure: Electric Vehicles tend to be heavier than traditional automobiles, chiefly due to the battery weight. Given that a vehicle’s structural frame represents another large share of the weight, batteries that can double as structural components can mean weight savings, better battery range, reduced road degradation, and improved safety. Rather than use battery storage enclosures, structural batteries bond cells to metal plates through adhesion, forming a practical structural beam
• Carbon Nanotubes: Forming an electrode out of billions of vertical carbon tubes can improve a battery’s energy density and charging time significantly. This is due to the gains in surface area for the electrolyte to react with. This is a developing technology, but it has great potential for improving energy storage technologies

Grid storage batteries are less further along in the development than EV ones, but renewable energy storage is making gains in practicality, including innovations in storing renewable energy for heat needs.

• Alternative Materials: A practical alternative to lithium-ion batteries (prone to overheating and degradation) is the ultimate goal for renewable energy storage. Style options in development include silicon-anode, nickel-hydrogen, and zinc-ion, though they are not all scaled or economic yet for grid storage batteries.
• Flow Batteries: These pump two separate, oppositely-charged electrolyte liquids back and forth across solid, porous electrodes, while a thin membrane material keeps the electrolytes from mixing. Switching the flow direction reverses the chemical reaction between charging and discharging. The porous electrodes maximise surface area and increase battery performance. The batteries scale in size well and allow tight storage with minimal heat buildup, while the separation of the electrolyte tanks and electrodes allows customisation. For electrodes, typically used is vanadium, which is rare and expensive. There is ongoing research and development to use more easily accessible materials, such as iron.
• Sand: Finland has developed a battery that stores heat in sand. It converts supplied electricity to heat, stores the heat in sand, and discharges the heat as needed into a homes-heating network. This technology could play a big part in the energy storage transition.

As the latest battery technology makes renewable energy storage more practical, the benefits will compound:

• More ethically sourced minerals
• Increased business involvement and competition in the industry
• More economical batteries
• More consumers adopting renewable energy technologies, such as the use of wind turbines, solar panels, hydropower, etc.
• Renewable energy available to more countries and communities
• Reduced emissions, and a more sustainable society

Explore the RS line of batteries and chargers to fulfil your everyday energy storage needs.