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Trending Technology

Freeze-thaw

battery

A leap towards

storing energy

S cientists have created a battery designed for the self-discharge limitations of today’s
battery technologies.
electric grid that locks in energy for months
without losing much storage capacity. The
development of the “freeze-thaw battery’’ Harnessing and packaging nature’s
which freezes its energy for use later, is a step energy
towards batteries that can be used for seasonal
storage: saving energy in one season, such as Renewable sources ebb and flow with
the spring, and spending it in another, like nature’s cycles. That makes it difficult to
autumn. include them in a reliable, steady stream of
electricity. In the Pacific Northwest in the
The prototype is small, about the size of a spring, for instance, rivers heavy with runoff
hockey puck. But the potential usefulness of the water power hydroelectric dams to the max
science behind the device is vast, foretelling a just as winds blow fiercely down the Colum-
time when energy from intermittent sources, bia Gorge.
like sunshine and wind, can be stored for a
long time. All that power must be harnessed immediately
or stored for a few days at most. Grid operators
The work by scientists at the Department would love to harness that springtime energy,
of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National store it in large batteries, then release it late
Laboratory (PNNL) was published online in the year when the region’s winds are slow,
March 23 in Cell Reports Physical Science. the rivers are low, and demand for electricity
“Longer-duration energy storage technologies are peaks.
important for increasing the resilience of the
grid when incorporating a large amount of
renewable energy’’ said Imre Gyuk, director The batteries would also enhance utilities,
of Energy Storage at DOE’s Office of Electricity, ability to weather a power outage during
which funded the work. This research marks severe storms, making large amounts of
an important step toward a seasonal battery energy available to be fed into the grid after a
storage solution that overcomes the hurricane, a wildfire or other calamity.

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