Molten Salt Battery Revolution
The world’s first molten salt battery is now running. It’s now in operation, and it’s actually working incredibly well.
Molten salt batteries are a new kind of battery that can potentially replace lithium ion batteries for energy storage.
We have looked at different battery chemistries, many different kinds of battery chemistry, many different kinds of potential new batteries which can change the energy grid worldwide. One of those is molten salt batteries.
Where Is Stored First Molten Battery
The world’s first molten salt energy storage battery has been launched in Denmark.
And this facility will store excess renewable energy, from solar in particular, but also wind during peak periods and release it when production dips. Of course, the night time would be common.
Danish company Heim Energy launched the world’s first energy storage project using molten hydroxide salt to store green energy.
The project is called molten salt storage, or Mows and energy storage facility has opened in Denmark.
Sren Gaid, chairman of the danish parliament and Port Esberg, officially inaugurated the facility at a ceremony hosted by Semco Maritime.
Challenge
A key challenge in adopting green energy is we need batteries to store it. Solar is incredibly cheap. It’s never been cheaper than what it is today.
It’s much, much cheaper than coal, for example. But here’s the key issue, storing that energy.
We make huge amounts of power during the key hours of the day, right between, say, the hours of 10:00 a.m.
In the morning and 03:00 p.m. In the afternoon. But a lot of that energy just has to go to waste because there’s no way to store it.
The output of massive, massive batteries has grown over the past twelve months by around 300% worldwide. But most of those batteries have been lithium.
There’s not many batteries that have been deployed worldwide that were not using lithium.
Heim Energy’s molten salt battery stores surplus energy produced during peak periods within molten hydroxide salt.
And the MOS is a giant, super efficient battery that competes with lithium ion phosphate.
This new facility will store energy from renewable sources like wind and solar, but also potentially other renewable sources as well, such as geothermal energy.
During high renewable energy generation periods, surplus electricity will be used to heat the hydroxide salt, which turns into a molten state.
The molten salt, held at extremely high temperatures, stores huge amounts of energy, and it can store that energy for a very long period of time, according to ask Emil Lovschall jensen, CEO and co founder of Heim Energy Future commercial MOS facilities can store green electricity in molten hydroxide salt heated up to 700 degrees celsius on a gigawatt hour scale.
So these batteries can be massive, as big as you want them to be. By storing green electricity in molten hydroxide salt, no lithium is obviously needed, and these batteries could potentially be cheaper.
The energy storage facilities create a reliable and sustainable reserve for the time when renewable energy generation is low.
And of course, that is in particular at night time when renewable energy production drops, moss batteries come into play.
The stored heat in the molten salt is released. This thermal energy can be efficiently converted into steam. And that steam obviously propels a turbine, which creates electricity. Molten hydroxide salt is remarkably heat resistant.
This trait allows it to store immense energy reserves with very minimal loss. This stored energy presents a viable alternative to fossil fuels in power plants and even heavy industries like manufacturing.
Now, the company believes that this battery should be used worldwide. It makes sense in their opinion, and they think it’s a better option than lithium batteries.
We are setting the stage together, they said, not just towards 2030, but towards a CO2 neutral 2050.
By proving that groundbreaking technologies can change our world towards a more sustainable future, said the CEO of this battery company.
Moss technology holds the potential for decarbonising numerous energy intensive industries.
Heat consumption comprises 50% of total energy usage globally, while accounting for 40% of carbon emissions.
By offering a green alternative to traditional energy sources for heat generation, MOS technology is possibly a solution to having cheaper energy storage batteries.
And not only that, but the potential for these batteries to last a very long time, is also a part of the enormous benefit of these battery packs.
Now, apparently they believe they’ll last about twice as long as lithium, even as a lithium ion phosphate batteries.
So even if it costs a little more to build out these new batteries, the fact that they’ll last for so long, potentially 30 or 40 years, would mean this type of energy storage is a crucial part of the global energy picture.
And absolutely, could we see these molten storage batteries? Molten salt storage batteries become a thing in other countries around the world? Well, I think we should it makes too much sense.
The fact we don’t need lithium, it uses abundant materials like salt, and the fact that this heat can be stored for long periods of time with such little energy loss, it just makes too much sense.