Demonstrating an Aqueous Air-Breathing Energy Storage System for Multi-Day Resiliency

The 2021 Senate Bill 100 Joint Agency Report concluded that clean firm resources such as  multi-day storage could enable the state to meet its clean energy mandates and reduce  electric system costs by $2 billion annually by 2045. However, the report also noted that no  clean firm technologies were currently commercially available to fulfill these needs, spurring  the California Energy Commission to increase its focus and incentives to bring longer-duration  energy storage technologies to market. Multi-day storage resources are needed to provide  low-cost, reliable service during multi-day periods of low renewable resource generation,  extreme weather, wildfires, and other grid events. Multi-day energy storage technologies,  including iron-air batteries, could help pave the way for California to build a resilient, clean,  and reliable grid.

Form Energy was founded by energy storage veterans who collaborated in 2017 on a unified  mission to reshape the global electric system by creating a new class of low-cost, multi-day  energy storage systems. Form Energy’s first commercial product was a grid-scale, iron-air  battery capable of delivering power continuously for 100 hours (about four days). Made with  iron, one of the most abundant minerals on Earth, this battery system could enable a reliable  year-round electric grid.

Electric Program Investment Charge funding supported validation of the performance and  functionality of a kilowatt-scale prototype module, a critical building block of Form Energy’s  iron-air energy storage system. As part of the project, third-party validation of the prototype  module performance was provided, and modeling information was shared about how Form Energy’s energy storage system could operate in the California Independent System Operator  market. The modeling highlighted certain areas where multi-day storage resources could  provide value to the Independent System Operator system, and where additional policy or  market structures could best realize that value to the electric grid.