So how is Form-Energy’s Iron-Air battery coming along?

[Stan]

Well, it’s tantalisingly close.

[Mart]

What do people think about this, especially the initial cost being 2-3x the cost of li-ion?

It sounds very promising to me, with the low cost of energy storage in the 100hr range, given the cycles etc etc.. But it appears the round trip efficiency is ~45%. That's reasonable compared to CAES and H2, but perhaps not good enough for medium term storage .... I'm not sure.

But whether it's this, or one of the many other possibilities working their way through development, the storage options at all levels (be it 4hrs or 100hrs+) are steadily improving.

[Stan]

Some figures for iron-air battery gleaned from the video:-

1200Wh/kg energy density

1MW power installed per acre is about 250W/m2 (low density)

3MW power installed per acre is about 750W/m2 (high density)

Capacity of 1GWh is 10MW for 100h.

[Marcus]

Hmm... I'm sensing a bit of marketing BS in the video TBH:

They quote the life cycle of lifepo4 as 2000 cycles, and if they use that for their lifecycle cost comparison then they're going to struggle to compete in the real world.

They emphasise the long duration (100hrs) charge /discharge as a strength rather than a limitation - there's nothing stopping you using a lithium battery over that timescale, but you also have the option to use lithium at higher rates too.

They emphasise the abundance and low cost of the raw materials, but that's not reflected in their current prices. Bottom line is that unless they get the price down to match the cost of iron, then it's not going to compete.

Still haven't seen a figure for the round trip efficiency either.

[nowty]

We have briefly touched on this a couple of times over the past 2 years and I still cannot find any technical details from the FormEnergy website.

https://camelot-forum.co.uk/phpBB3/view ... f=14&t=176

https://camelot-forum.co.uk/phpBB3/view ... =18&t=1806

https://formenergy.com/technology/battery-technology/

I have found this info on a German website which has a small amount of technical info,
https://www.umsicht.fraunhofer.de/en/pr ... ttery.html

Form Energy have recently started construction on a battery plant,
https://www.weirtondailytimes.com/news/ ... struction/

And there appear to be some projects starting up, using them to re-power retired coal station sites in the USA.
https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2023/06/12/ ... n-georgia/ (15MW/1.5GWh)

https://www.utilitydive.com/news/minnes ... ar/685460/ (10MW/1GWh)

[Stinsy]

It’ll be ready around the same time as nuclear fusion!