Ron Macdonald.... He said: “Zinc8 is going to accelerate to full production by late 2022. In fact, we are now looking to make that to early 2022. We are probably going to double commercialization. We are trying to get different levels of support from the government and the investors. We are set to meet our production targets in 2022.”
Low-cost energy storage has been sought after for a number of years. The big thing is: how do you provide long-term economic storage for the marketplace? The marketplace is segmented into three: utilities, a gigantic marketplace. We are also seeing the iron behind the meter. It is developing. Another is microgrids, which have been around for some time. We think we can play, and lead across all of these markets. Example, for an 8-hour system, the cost per kWh is $250. The bigger your system, the more capacity you can add to the system.
Doing a comparison of the different technologies, by decoupling the linkage between the power and energy, and using low-cost abundant materials, our system is capable of reducing its capital cost dramatically for longer-duration apps. As we go forward from 8 hours storage to 30 hours storage, that is a $110 per kWh difference. That is a massive market! This is why we are exploring partnerships.
How it works?
Dr. Simon Fan, CTO, Zinc8, added that power from the grid or renewable source is used to generate zinc particles in the zinc regenerator. Oxygen is released to the atmosphere as a by-product. The zinc particles are flowed to the storage tank and maintained by potassium hydroxide electrolyte, until required.