The American company NantEnergy has announced that it has now installed 3000 installations of zinc-air batteries in nine countries, intended for the storage of sustainable energy. As a result, the production costs of these batteries have fallen to less than 100 dollars per kWh.
According to American billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong, the director of NantEnergy, these zinc-air batteries have become cheaper than the average cost of lithium-ion batteries. Over the past six years, these zinc-air batteries have been deployed and tested in many villages in Africa and Asia, as well as at telephone towers in the United States. According to the company, no support from other devices or power from the electricity network was required; the batteries are used to store solar and wind energy, for example.
NantEnergy states that a single zinc-air battery is capable of supplying power for 72 hours on a single charge. This could ultimately lead to an electricity network with greatly reduced CO2 emissions. In addition, this could greatly reduce the need for minerals such as lead, lithium and cobalt. Compared to cobalt, zinc is certainly much less scarce and also less flammable than lithium. According to the company, these batteries can eventually also be used to store energy in homes.
In The New York Times, an American professor from the University of South Florida calls this technology a ‘game changer’. Dan Reicher, a secretary of state in Bill Clinton’s administration, reports that this could be a milestone if these types of batteries prove reliable for continued use. At the same time, he states that the technology still has to prove itself and that the price per kWh strongly depends on the way it is used and the scale at which it is deployed.
Zinc-air battery technology is not new. In the form of small, round, flat batteries, this technology is already being used in hearing aids, among other things. When such a battery is put into use, a plastic layer must be removed so that the air can enter. In this battery, the air actually forms the cathode. For example, NantEnergy rechargeable batteries, which are about the size of a suitcase, store the electricity from solar panels by converting zinc oxide into zinc and oxygen. When discharged, energy is released because the zinc is oxidized by the air.