This looks intriguing and market-ready. Pretty darn big footprint, but I think my basement could handle it.
Low-cost saltwater battery wins $500,000 award
Low-cost saltwater battery wins $500,000 award
A relatively cheap and environmentally friendly battery that uses saltwater and other commonly available materials to solve one of the biggest technical challenges facing renewable energy technologies was awarded a prize whose past recipients have gone on to have significant impact on technology and society at large.
An Aqueous Hybrid Ion battery roughly the size of a dishwasher or small refrigerator potentially stores enough solar or wind energy to power a single-family home completely off the grid in a region where sunlight is relatively plentiful, according to Dr. Jay Whitacre, a professor of materials science at Carnegie Mellon who invented the battery.
Whitacre said that the company should be able to sell Aquion batteries capable of powering a typical single family home for between $1,000 and $3,000, depending on the size, once the company is working at full production in the next year or two. Those batteries will last for about 3,000 cycles, or 3,000 days and nights. So, if the battery were hooked up to solar panels, one day would represent a full charge and one night might represent a full discharge. Taken together, one charge and one discharge makes one complete cycle.