2024-09-03 04:04:35
Washington: An American energy start-up company is planning to build the world’s largest battery. This start-up named Form Energy is located in Lincoln, Maine. The main purpose of building such a large battery is to reduce the stress on the power grid. This project is being financed by the US Department of Energy. The Department of Energy is giving a grant of $ 147 million for the construction of energy storage solutions. If there is no change in the existing plans, the new battery will be able to store 8,500 megawatt-hours (MWh) of electricity.
What did the battery manufacturing company say
Mateo Jaramillo, CEO and co-founder of Form Energy, said in the statement that the battery system will be able to store the most energy of any system announced in the world. The current record is held by the Edwards and Sanborn solar-plus-storage project in California, which uses more than 120,000 batteries to store 3,287 MWh.
How much energy will this battery store?
8,500 MWh of energy is so much that just one megawatt-hour (1MWh) of it can give enough power to an electric car to travel 3,600 miles (5,800 kilometers). If the battery made by Form Energy is somehow connected to that electric car, then it can travel about 50 million kilometers in a single charge. This is enough to orbit the Earth 1228 times. However, this battery cannot be connected to the car. A good laptop battery has a capacity of about 65 Wh, which means that the new battery can store 130 million times more electricity.
How will the world’s largest battery work
This new battery bank will be built using Form Energy’s new iron-air battery system, which works using a process of “reversible rusting.” In short, when the battery discharges, it takes oxygen from the air and turns the iron inside the battery into rust. Then, when the battery recharges the process reverses – turning the rust back into iron and releasing oxygen into the air.