Zinc-ion battery company Salient Energy has formalized a partnership with Horton World Solutions (HWS), a sustainable homebuilder, in which HWS will host the first in-field demonstration of Salient’s zinc-ion storage system and qualify the system for installation. HWS founder and CEO Terry Horton will also join Salient Energy’s board of advisors.
“Energy storage is a key part of making zero-carbon homes,” Horton said. “But the current lithium-ion systems have a lot of issues. They create a fire risk that we need to design around, which further adds time and complexity to our permitting process. They are also frequently in short supply, which makes it risky to plan for them being an integral part of our designs. When I saw that Salient’s zinc-ion could solve both these issues, I knew I had to get involved.”
Salient’s zinc-ion battery uses a water-based design that eliminates the risk of fire. It is built with zinc and manganese, metals that are mined and processed in North America and abundant around the globe. The team at Salient Energy has designed its zinc-ion energy storage systems to have the same power, performance, and footprint as lithium-ion systems, so that it can work as a drop-in replacement for systems currently in the market.
“We built zinc-ion to accelerate the adoption of clean energy,” said Ryan Brown, co-founder of Salient. “So, the opportunity to build zero-carbon homes with our technology is an exciting step forward for us. Our goal is to build safe, affordable, and sustainable systems that become the standard for home energy storage. We’re extremely lucky to have someone as experienced as Terry helping us achieve this goal.”
News item from Salient
Salient Energy may well have a solid chemistry for future cheap, long lasting battery chemistry. The bottom line is manufacturing a product cheaper by using more readily available materials. It is pointed out that Zinc is 100 times more available than Lithium in the supply chain right now. With the Lithium-ion technology and chemistries available as “drop in” materials for a manufacturing line, this gives Li Ion a boost over zinc battery chemistries. What might make more sense is the approach company 24M has taken with their lithium-ion slurries and a “proprietary” ceramic separator to make a cell that is very much like a redox flow battery, but without the plumbing, pumps and reaction cells with permeable membranes. As mentioned, one needs to get away from the 2 to 4 hour ESS and into the 8 to12 hour ESS for large scale energy storage facilities. Water as an electrolyte is mentioned and yet the World hasn’t fully witnessed the grand possibilities of the solid-state battery as a long term solution to energy storage systems every where.