Batteries The Key to an Alternative-Energy Future

There is much talk about wind and solar energy and electric cars ...

There is much talk about wind and solar energy and electric cars being the cornerstones of the alternative energy future. But unless an efficient, safe, and cost-effective method to store electrical energy is invented, these technologies will not become practical.

Batteries in Renewable Energy
One challenge with solar and wind power farms is that their output don’t always match customers’ usage levels. For example, residential customers use a lot of energy during summer afternoons and evenings, turning on their lights and air conditioners, while the sun is going down. To compensate for this mismatch, there needs to be a way to store the electricity efficiently and cost effectively, to use it when needed.

The batteries in commercial and residential installations use the same fundamental technology as a Lead-Acid battery used in ordinary cars. Noticeable progress has been made in the past few years to minimize the maintenance requirements and to increase the efficiency of these batteries. However, the cost of these batteries per stored unit of energy, in addition to the initial cost of solar panels or wind turbine, is still too expensive compared to the electricity generated with fossil fuels. But government regulations and subsidies should help swing the pendulum in favor of alternative energy, increasing the share of renewable energy in the next decade.


Batteries for Transportation
Today’s 40 to 100-mile driving range of electric cars is far from being practical for a typical driver. But today’s battery options for electric cars are either too heavy, inefficient or not safe enough to achieve the 200 to 300-mile range.

To allow the sudden acceleration of the vehicle, electric cars require a large amount of power to be released from the battery in a very short time. This unique requirement automatically disqualifies a large number of battery types for this application. The most common battery used in hybrid and electric cars is based on Nickel Metal Hydride technology. This 25-year-old technology is reliable enough to be placed in a passenger car, but is relatively inefficient in the amount of energy it stores compared to a laptop battery, which is made using Lithium Ion. But since Lithium Ion batteries are expensive to make, and have the reputation of setting laptops on fire, they’re not deemed economical or safe for use in passenger vehicles. Once Lithium Ion or a similar technology solves these problems, we’ll be on our way to electric vehicles with practical driving range.

As you can see, the right battery makes the difference of turning solar and wind power and electric cars into practical solutions for everyday use. That’s why billions of dollars of investment are being poured into various battery technologies.
Observation:

In checking other articles pertaining to batteries, most articles do not capitalize lithium ion and print it as lithium-ion battery.