Form Energy, a Somerville, Massachusetts-based grid-scale energy storage developer, announced a definitive agreement with Georgia Power, a Southern Company utility, to deploy a 15 MW / 1.5 GWh iron-air battery into the utility’s Georgia grid, providing a 100-hour dispatch long-duration energy storage (LDES) system.
The multi-day LDES project is part of Georgia Power’s integrated plan to deploy additional cost-effective clean energy systems for grid reliability and resiliency. Subject to regulatory approval, the battery project is projected to enter commercial operations in 2026.
“Our customers, including many businesses and commercial accounts, are increasingly interested in the use of new technologies such as multi-day energy storage to help grow renewable energy and enhance reliability, especially as they relocate or grow their operations in Georgia,” said Kim Greene, president and chief executive officer of Georgia Power. “Form Energy’s technology is cutting edge and we’re excited to continue to work with them to serve our customers.”
Form Energy and the utility are collaborating to fully evaluate and demonstrate the 100-hour iron-air battery project will strengthen the local grid against normal daily, weekly and seasonal weather variability, in addition to extreme weather events, the developer said. This includes analysis modeled by Georgia Power and input from Formware, Form Energy’s investment and operational modeling software tool for power grids.
“We are pleased to strengthen our relationship through this partnership with Georgia Power and look forward to delivering an innovative multi-day energy storage system that will provide grid reliability and resiliency in their service territory for years to come,” said Mateo Jaramillo, chief executive officer and co-founder of Form Energy.
Georgia Power provides electricity to 2.7 million customers in all but four Georgia counties. In 2022, regulator Georgia Public Service Commission approved the utility’s long-term integrated resource plan (IRP). The utility has already deployed a large grid storage project, the 265 MW McGrau Ford battery facility, a lithium-ion battery project in Cherokee County, Ga., and an additional 500 MW of storage assets.
Besides the Form Energy project, the utility has a 65 MW project under development in Talbot County and a 13 MW project deployment for the U.S. Army located at Fort Stewart, near Savannah, Ga.
Form Energy was founded in 2017 by energy storage veterans who shared a unified mission to reshape the global electric system by creating a new class of low-cost multi-day energy storage systems.
The company began construction of its Weirton, West Virginia battery factory in May and plans to start manufacturing iron-air battery systems in 2024 for commercialization. The Governor of West Virginia, Jim Justice, announced that the state was able to structure a unique financial incentive package worth up to $290 million in asset-based, performance financing to support their decision to locate in Weirton.
The company has raised over $820 million in growth equity funding to date, with a most recent $450 million Series E round completed in October 2022 from TPG Rise Fund, GIC and Canada Pension Plan Investment Board. Prior investors include Bill Gates’ Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Capricorn Investment Group, Energy Impact Partners, ArcelorMittal, MIT’s The Engine, Prelude Ventures and VamosVentures, among others.
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Each home should get its own iron-aire bttery that powers home during peak periods of the day in exchange for a 50% reduced usage rate during the peak months of the year. This is how the rich get richer by taking the savings/added reliability that should go to home owners and accumulated funds to the corporation.
Warning, since it takes 8 days at 100 hrs charge, discharge, it can only do ~50 cycles/yr max!
How does one make money on 50 cycles/yr?
And remember this can’t choose when to discharge or cuts the cycle/yr badly making it more expensive/kwh.
So don’t fall for these low output/cycle batteries that are so much larger than high output ones, the cost isn’t much different. For instance LFP batteries long before this one gets built, will be in the $45/kwh range in 2 yrs and can put it’s full output in 15 minutes to make money when the peak money to be made and charge fast when the cheapest.
Inverters are cheap and cells can easily handle .25/hr discharges to make money while peak pricing is there, is just leaving money on the table.
And any battery can be a 100 hr too, just reduce the output, but don’t hamper it from making far more money fast by restricting the output needlessly.
Or pushing scams like iron/air, salt, other large low output ones as not viable.
“Warning, since it takes 8 days at 100 hrs charge, discharge, it can only do ~50 cycles/yr max!
How does one make money on 50 cycles/yr?”
Well, if that were the only way it could be used, sure. It won’t be, of course. It will be partially used every day for load leveling – perhaps a few times per day. Not 100% utilization, certainly, but much more utility than 15 times per year. Since load-leveling often sees spot prices for electricity exceeding 1,000 times higher than base load generation, it’s a fantastic deal. It just HAPPENS to have the ability (say, a generator failure) to discharge for more than 4 hours.
” For instance LFP batteries long before this one gets built, will be in the $45/kwh range in 2 yrs and can put it’s full output in 15 minutes to make money when the peak money to be made and charge fast when the cheapest.”
What do you think the price of LiIon batteries would be if everyone around the world started demanding 100 hour backup systems? Just one alone is nearly all of the manufacturing capacity for EVs worldwide. Slave labor in the Congo to mine the cobalt. Potential fires like the one at the Tesla grid storage plant. Etc.
Iron is literally dirt cheap, safe, non-flammable, 100% recyclable. Your fantasies of low LiIon battery prices for grid storage are exactly equal to the theory that unicorns will save us from global warming – iron batteries will ALWAYS be a cheaper solution for grid storage than lithium. Given that, simply buy more of the iron batteries.
But, overall unreliable renewables are pretty much a dead end – because of the batteries. The only solution which even shows potential promise to deliver 24×7 reliable, clean energy is closed loop geothermal (not one of the nuclear experts predicts even the most modern modular designs will ever become cheaper than 2x natural gas, and none have been demonstrated).
I can’t believe you didn’t talk about round trip efficiency, the biggest head scratcher of storing 100 hours of electricity this way it you lose 60% of in RTE, leaving just 40% for useful work. You need very strong signals to make this work. Couple that with taking 100 hours to charge and 100 hours to discharge means you can only cycle 43 times a year a with MAX year round utilization. I’d guess actual utilization would fall closer to half that because of the seasonal nature of low cost energy, and the seasonal nature of when you need to dispatch it. So it’s getting less and less clear how this tech has any chance, yet you didn’t touch the topic, which is a real shame. Leaves this feeling less like journalism and more like VC puff pastry. I don’t like that direction that this media group is going in, if it doesn’t cut through the hype, and talk about fundamental issues like this.