We spend billions on the development of batteries that have with even future technology only a slim chance of being able to store enough energy to light a small city let alone power an AI center. This research is being funded to fix the problem of so called renewable sources that don’t generate any power when the sun isn’t shining or the wind isn’t blowing. Perhaps it is time to look at thorium
Nah China has batteries today that can do days worth of discharge.
20ft iso container holds 14.5 megawatt hours worth of energy storage, that powers a typical office building for days. 500kw is normal load for a 10 story office building. A Costco uses a megawatt when open and half that when closed.
The LCOS round trip for this megapack is $1.4 per megawatt hours worth of energy storage. That’s 1.4 cents per kWh round trip. Texas has negative $3 wholesale power from 0800 till 1600 yesterday because we had 87% of the grid power was solar wind and nukes. I posted the real time data and the wholesale prices yesterday look at my post history it’s in there.
If you owned a office building or condo complex you could’ve been paid to charge your BYD megapack $3 per megawatt hour and it would have cost you $1.4 to store it and pull it back out for a net profit to you. Yeah this tech already exists tariffs keep it from being available here.
https://interestingengineering.com/energy/china-byd-dc-battery-block
14.5 MWh is enough for 10 homes using 50kWh per day a typical summer’s day in Texas in a 3000sq ft home , 14500kWh is 29 days worth for those ten homes this is from a box 20 feet long, 8 feet wide and 8.5 feet tall half a 40 ft shipping container size.
For $1.4 per megawatt hours stored I would gladly go in with ten of my neighbors and house that small of a box in the back 2 acres it’s only 160 square feet of area for crying out loud.
Welcome to the 21st century my guy.
Oh and 100+ hour iron batteries are in production .
https://formenergy.com/technology/battery-technology/
We are not ever going to be short on iron or oxygen. And it’s like $6 kWh in materials cost using Fe as your triple valence state metal.