Current intermittent renewable power sources such as photovoltaics (PV) and wind cannot on their own provide dispatchable power needed to warrant the replacement of a significant fraction of current fossil-fuel based electrical generation. As a result, fluctuations in renewable source power are backed up by natural gas fired “peaker” plants operating at less than optimal conditions. The US Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) has provided researchers at Harvard University with a one year, $600,000 innovation grant to promote the development of a new type of energy storage battery. The battery technology, currently under development, is called a flow-battery , and it offers the prospect of cost-effective, grid-scale electrical energy storage based on eco-friendly small organic molecules. Sustainable Innovations, LLC will be providing the flow battery balance of system as well as a technical-economic assessment of the technology.

The proposed flow-battery is a significant innovation important to the future of renewable energy. It can provide an inexpensive, reliable energy source at or near the generation site, rendering the renewable source available for dispatch and reducing the use of less efficient peaking generation resources. Flow batteries are more flexible and cost effective than solid electrode batteries due to the fact that all reactants and products are stored outside of the electrochemical conversion device. Therefore, the battery can be optimized for required power while the required energy is independently determined by the mass of the reactant and the size of the storage tanks. This important structural difference can drive down the cost of storage per kWh, the single most challenging requirement for grid-scale storage.

The development team for this project is broadly experienced, including theoretical chemist Alan Asparu-Guzik of Harvard, experimental chemist Roy Gordon of Harvard, high performance flow cell developer Michael Aziz of Harvard, and commercial electrochemical system developer Dr. Trent Molter of Sustainable Innovations, LLC. Dr. Trent Molter leads Sustainable Innovations’ portion of the ARPA-E project. While technology developers at Harvard will focus on the identification of optimum molecules, synthesis of molecules and practical electrocatalytic and protective coatings, molecular electrode electrochemistry and flow-battery development, Sustainable Innovations will be playing an integral part in implementing these innovations into commercial electrochemical systems. Dr. Molter’s expertise in the development of electrochemical systems for CO₂ reduction showing high Faradaic efficiency at high current density and his involvement in the development of energy storage products for grid-based applications will be leveraged in Sustainable Innovations’ efforts. Sustainable Innovations is responsible for the design and build of the balance of the system around the cell, including fluid handling and storage, and voltage and round-trip energy efficiency measurements. Sustainable Innovations will deliver systems instrumented for measurement of catholyte and anolyte flows and pH, pressure, temperature, current density and cell voltage to Harvard for testing.