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Lead-Acid Emerges as Challenger to Li-ion for Grid Storage

July 13, 2015 by Jeff Shepard

Gridtential Energy, Inc. has been selected by the Department of Energy (DOE) as one of a handful of companies to pursue validation analysis at Sandia's Energy Storage Analysis Laboratory. The grant is designed to further the DOE's strategic mission in the area of grid storage and coincides with Gridtential's completion of 140 alpha units based on its Silicon Joule™ technology.

Flying in the face of Tesla's recent declaration that lead acid is "dead", recent independent tests have confirmed that Gridtential's silicon-based approach to advance traditional lead acid significantly improves performance, while utilizing 40% less lead. The results point to Gridtential as an ideal solution for solar's urgent need for 2 to 4 hour grid storage applications.

At Sandia, the test plan is designed to address two use case scenarios: Peak Shaving cycling. In compliance with Sandia's standard test protocols, Gridtential's batteries will run through a standard peak shaving application. Gridtential expects each to reach nearly 100% SOC after each charge cycle and 80-100% depth of discharge. Partial State of Charge (PSoC) cycling. To gain a view of Gridtential's long-term performance in a PSoC environment, Sandia will charge the battery to 100% SOC and then begin cycling it at a medium rate which is designed to bring sulfation issues to light very quickly.

Gridtential Energy has also been funded in part by an award from the California Energy Commission's Energy Innovations Small Grant Program. The company has developed and tested internal prototypes of an advanced battery design that has 75% lower LCOE of traditional lead acid, 2x cycle life improvement at 80% depth of discharge and 2x greater available energy at same weight as current products. The seed funding will be used to develop full-scale demonstration units for field tests within the next year.

"Tesla is not the only company capable of producing a smart, sexy battery; the difference is ours is safe and scalable today. Via our battery manufacturing partners, we have access to hundreds of operating 'gigafactories' that can bring our Silicon Jouleâ„¢ technology to market without retooling or massive investment," said Christiaan Beekhuis, President and CEO of Gridtential Energy.

Gridtential has developed a proprietary technology for an advanced lead-acid battery that replaces the metal grid in current lead-acid battery designs with a silicon substrate. The Gridtential technology yields higher energy density, longer cycle life and deeper depth-of-discharge than incumbent products. The manufacturing of the silicon substrates leverages existing high-throughput, cost-effective solar cell processing equipment. We will license the technology to existing lead-acid battery manufacturers worldwide in an extremely capital efficient, high-margin business model. Two leading U.S. lead-acid battery companies are already engaged with Gridtential.