Project description
Improving battery technology for renewable energy storage
The share of wind and solar in the global power mix currently exceeds 25 % and continues to grow rapidly and steadily. New grid management solutions will be needed to avoid overwhelming the grid and causing supply insecurity and outages. Unless current energy storage technologies improve, electricity operators will need to spend around EUR 480 billion to expand the grid networks. EU funding of the Nano-Edison project will enable an Iceland-based company to develop the first battery energy storage technology that meets all performance and cost criteria for grid applications. The new battery technology will be tolerant to heavy currents, overcharging/over-discharging and short circuits and will employ pulse technology – making it ideal for capturing variable renewable energy.
Objective
Increasing share of renewable energy (solar and wind) into the EU energy mix is posing new grid management problems for operators. As the share exceeds 25%, it causes high levels of grid instability that can lead to supply insecurity and outages. As a result, EU electricity distribution operators will require €480 billion by 2035 to expand their networks to overcome challenges associated with integrating renewables if cost and service life of current energy storage technologies are not improved. The only two energy storage methods that have acceptable cost and life: pumped hydro-storage (PHS) and compressed air energy storage (CAES) do not have the required rapid response times and are severely limited by geographic restrictions. While battery energy storage (BES) systems have the required instantaneous response, current technologies are prohibitively expensive and have limited lifespans and have safety risks.
In response to this, Greenvolt Nanoma ehf, an Icelandic company uses nanotechnology to develop the first ever BES technology to meet all performance and cost criteria for grid applications. Our Nano-Edison battery’s costs and service life are comparable to PHS and CAES. Our solution is also tolerant to heavy currents, overcharging/discharging and even short circuits and can support pulse charging – making it ideal for capturing variable renewable energies.
As such, we have a unique advantage within the rapidly growing €7.34 billion global market for grid-scale battery storage. With a viable technology that enables grid operators to defer investments in costly network expansion, we seek to be the global leader in energy storage for stationary applications. We have estimated that we will need an additional investment of €3.5 million to achieve that and bring our technology to the market.
Fields of science
Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
SME-1 - SME instrument phase 1Coordinator
101 REYKJAVIK
Iceland
The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.