Want a Solar-Powered Home? Here's a New Battery That Won't Ignite
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If you dream of an off-grid house powered by the sun, plan on a battery to store energy for cloudy days—ideally, one that won’t catch fire. Harvard researchers might have just the fix.
In the race to build the battery of the future, they’re unveiling a unique option. They say their flow battery is the first made with cheap, non-toxic, non-corrosive, non-flammable, high-performance materials.
“It is a huge step forward. It opens this up for anyone to use,” says Michael Aziz, Harvard University engineering professor and co-author of a study published Thursday in the journal Science. Because the battery is safe and non-corrosive, he says, it’s well suited for both businesses and homes, adding: “This is chemistry I’d be happy to put in my basement.”
As climate change accelerates the push for clean power, energy storage has emerged as the holy grail of renewables, and its research has taken off in the last five years. The reason’s simple: solar panels and wind turbines produce intermittent power that needs to be stored for use when the sun doesn’t shine or the wind doesn’t blow.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/energy/2015/09/150924-nonflammable-battery-could-charge-solar-homes/
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