By Michele Tedesco, Wetsus, European Centre of Excellence for Sustainable Water Technology, The Netherlands
THE ENERGY STORAGE CHALLENGE
The need of energy storage for our
society has drastically increased in
the last years, due to a growing share
of renewables (wind and solar) on
electricity grids.
Electrochemical energy
storage has received increasing attention
as an alternative storage system,
and several battery technologies
have been making rapid advances in
the past years. However, despite all
the R&D efforts, a new generation of
innovative batteries is urgently needed,
to provide safe and sustainable energy
storage on large scale and ensure
grid stability in the future.
CONCEPT
The aim of the BAoBaB project is to
develop and demonstrate the first
acid-base flow battery as a safe and
environmentally friendly technology
for centralized and decentralized
energy storage. The technology is
based on bipolar electrodialysis,
i.e. a membrane process able to
dissociate water and generate acid
and base solutions. During the
battery charge, electricity is used
to generate acid and base from a
salt solution. During discharge, the
opposite process occurs, and electric
energy can be harvested by the
controlled mixing of acid and base in
the battery. As a result, the acid-base
flow battery technology allows to
store electric energy using only salt
and water, thus providing a safe and
sustainable energy storage system.
The technology has already been
demonstrated at laboratory scale,
and the first demonstration at pilot
scale is currently ongoing.
EXPECTED IMPACT
- Bring to the market a scalable and flexible energy storage system at kWh-MWh scale
- Enlarge the portfolio of available energy storage systems for centralized and decentralized applications (e.g. island grids)
THE BAOBAB PROJECT
The BAoBaB project is a H2020
collaborative project gathering
6 partners from 3 different EU
countries. In the past four years, the
BAoBaB partners have being focusing
their R&D efforts on several aspects,
including development of novel
battery components (monopolar/
bipolar membranes), process
modeling, life cycle assessment,
battery optimization at laboratory
scale, stack design and scale up.
DEMONSTRATION SITES
The final goal of the BAoBaB project
is to demonstrate the acid-base
flow battery technology in relevant
environment (TRL 5-6). Last months a
first pilot-scale demonstration plant
with a target capacity of 1 kW/7 kWh
has been built by AquaBattery. The
pilot has been recently installed in
Pantelleria (a small Italian island in
the Mediterranean Sea), and will be
tested in the upcoming months as
energy storage system at the local
power plant, to provide seasonal
storage during high energy demand
in summer months. An important
milestone in the scale-up of the
technology, and in the path towards
sustainable energy storage.
Contact Information
Project Coordinator: Dr. Michele Tedesco, Wetsus
Website: www.baobabproject.eu
Email: Baobab.Project@wetsus.nl
Project partners: Wetsus, AquaBattery BV, Fujifi lm Manufacturing Europe BV, Universitá degli Studi di Palermo, Fundación CIRCE, SMEDE SpA.
The BAoBaB project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under Grant Agreement no. 731187.