How Ambri and TerraScale are Testing The Waters on Big Battery Storage

Ambri Liquid Metal Battery

Ambri Liquid Metal Batteries

As the world looks for ways to transition to renewable energy, it’s more important than ever to find solutions that speed up that transition. Solar, wind and hydro are great renewable sources of energy, but the energy produced is difficult to store, meaning that renewable energy must be consumed immediately as it is produced. While rooftop solar customers can supplement their systems with battery storage to power them through storms and dark nights, the future of energy needs a more efficient and affordable way to store energy on a big scale—like to help power the whole electric grid when the sun doesn’t shine and the wind doesn’t blow.

Ambri’s Game Changing Battery Technology
A very promising step forward comes from Ambri, Inc.’s Liquid Metal Battery, a new kind of long duration battery technology. This new development makes it possible for large-scale use of renewable energy that brings costs down and can boost reliability and efficiency of the power grid. The roots of this battery come from an MIT lab, with Professor Donald Sadoway, who founded Ambri in 2010 with this technological breakthrough. Investors include Bill Gates, Khosla Ventures and TOTAL SE.

For the average energy customer, this kind of technology can have a big impact when connected to the power grid. With more energy coming from renewable sources, the need to balance renewable generation with traditional fossil fuel power plants increases. Batteries like Ambri’s can help smooth the curve by handling peak demand, and absorbing baseload production when there’s oversupply on the grid.

How Liquid Metal Batteries Work
Aside from being reliable, scalable, and modular, Ambri’s battery can perform at 100% depth of discharge cycling performance for more than 20 years with a rate of degradation that is significantly lower than other battery storage solutions. Simply put, it’s a workhorse. This is a battery that can operate safely without being in a climate-controlled environment, and without requiring cooling or fire suppression equipment. That helps the whole system work more efficiently and lowers the amount of maintenance required as well as the cost of the project.

Ambri and TerraScale: Energy on the Move
Ambri’s technology is making its way to Reno, Nevada, as Ambri partners with clean infrastructure design firm TerraScale. The Liquid Metal Battery will be integrated into TerraScale’s Energos Reno project to assist in storing energy from the data center’s on-site renewable energy generation. The goal? To keep costs down, reduce carbon emissions, and cater to future tenants like large commercial and government data uses, who are looking for a sustainable, green data center solution as energy concerns grow.
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This kind of battery storage is a part of the future of energy. With a greater ability to store clean energy like wind and solar, comes a greater ability to generate and distribute clean energy as well. The stability of the electric grid is not a given in many places.  Even the United States is seeing more strain on traditional resources, and the stresses associated with an ageing infrastrucutre. Large-scale reliable renewable energy storage can reduce the stress on the grid and pave the way for a cleaner energy future the world over. For those seeking long-term renewable energy solutions, Liquid Metal Batteries like Ambri’s could be the answer.

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