How a new class of startups are working to solve the grid storage puzzle

Form Energy, Antora and others are trying to develop very cheap, very long-lasting storage to clean up the electricity system, reports James Temple.

The problem: Solar panels and wind turbines are cheap, clean, reliable sources of electricity, right up until they’re not. The sun sets; the wind flags. They can’t power an electricity grid alone. Something else will need to step in to smooth out mismatches between generation and demand.

A potential solution: Form Energy is convinced that something could be a battery. But it would have to cost less than $10 per kilowatt-hour, a huge leap from the hundreds of dollars charged for today’s best grid batteries. They think they could hit the target by developing big batteries that rely on extremely cheap, energy-dense materials.

Other ideas: A growing amount of storage is provided by lithium-ion batteries, which are steadily getting cheaper and more powerful. A few renewables developers are proposing giant solar farms coupled with huge battery storage systems. But the scale of the gap between what we have and what we need remains huge. Read the full story here. 

Read next: The creators of the Lithium-ion battery won the Nobel Prize in chemistry. Now we need the next battery breakthrough.