lithium-oxygen superbattery

_Tombstone_

The future in batteries - in 10 years.

Lithium-oxygen, or lithium-air, batteries have been touted as the ‘ultimate’ battery due to their theoretical energy density, which is ten times that of a lithium-ion battery.

Such a high energy density would be comparable to that of gasoline – and would enable an electric car with a battery that is a fifth the cost and a fifth the weight of those currently on the market to drive from London to Edinburgh on a single charge.

cros13

Lithium-air is the future but I'd be skeptical about getting there in 10 years.
The issue is the battery's resilience, the cathode currently gets damaged by discharge products and the battery's capacity and output rapidly decreases after a few tens or hundreds of cycles.
Most efforts at solving the problem involve nano-scale engineering of the cathode surface, which is a hell of a rabbit hole to go down.

For the moment it doesn't matter because Lithium NCM cell prices are due to hit under $150/kWh next year and home storage batteries like Tesla's 12kWh for $3000 powerwall are going on sale (I already have my order in).

Those batteries are economical in Ireland today. Given an average Irish home without adding solar PV, just time shifting power from the nightsaver tariff to daytime consumption, the battery pays for itself in about 8 years.

It's also worth mentioning that 300km range EV powertrains using Lithium NCA and NCM will be cheaper to fit to a car than internal combustion when cell prices hit the $100/kWh mark, which is likely to happen in the next four years.
They are already cheaper if you include running costs up to 160,000km. The main issue being that most manufacturers are selling cars with 20-25 kWh batteries, Tesla is selling 70-90kWh equipped cars and until the end of next year there's nothing in the middle, reasonably priced with a 45-55kWh battery.
GM is launching the Bolt next year with a ~50kWh pack built by LG Chem for $145/kWh (cell price), no right hand drive model expected unfortunately.
Tesla has the Model 3, due to be unveiled in March but not shipping in significant quantities until end 2017/2018. Expected pricing in the UK of £25,000 before government incentives.

The battery technology we have now is more than sufficient for mass electrification of transport (with possibly the sole exception of air transport until metal air batteries are improved) and mass grid storage.

cros13

cros13 wrote: »

Given an average Irish home without adding solar PV, just time shifting power from the nightsaver tariff to daytime consumption, the battery pays for itself in about 8 years.

Have you figures to demonstrate this?

I wouldn't imagine 8 years if you're only saving 8-9 cent per Kwh ?

minus charger losses, minus charging losses, minus inverter losses, minus base load of system idle.

Lithium Air is a long way off, though 5 years and we could see x 2-3 Lithium battery capacity. (maybe)

Current battery tech is good enough.

How much does the 12 Kwh Powerwall cost again Cros, in Ireland that is ?