Flow Battery Cost Are

Dependent On Time

April 25th, 2020 by Nate Brinkerhoff

Originally published by The Future Is Electric.

You may have heard the claim that lithium-ion storage will only last 4 hours. It is often cited as
support for other energy storage solutions. However, as an engineer, I take any sort of
technological matter of fact statement like this with a grain of salt. Will this saying always hold
true? Shouldn’t innovation eventually extend this duration? What about lithium-ion batteries is
this claim based on? Well, I have some answers.

Lithium-Ion Basics
Let’s start with the basics. Lithium-ion batteries are a broad class of electrochemical energy
storage systems that move lithium ions (how fitting) and their electron counterpart between a
higher chemical potential reservoir and a lower one, separated by an electrolyte. More
specifically, lithium-ion batteries, also referred to as battery packs, are composed of thousands
of interconnected cells, which are individual cylinders shaped like AA batteries that house the
two reservoirs, an electrolyte, two current collectors, and some safety parts. Imagine unrolling
this cylinder and looking inside at its layers and you’ll see the structure of a lithium-ion cell
detailed below (specifically, this is a lithium cobalt oxide cell, but the supporting cast of other
chemicals doesn’t matter for our purposes). Keep this cell’s structure in mind during the
following discussion, as we must peek into the cell level physics to find the answers we seek.
 Lithium-Ion Battery Basic Schematic. Graphic by Nate Brinkerhoff.

The difference in chemical potential between the two reservoirs in a cell is what can
fundamentally store massive amounts of energy for future discharge. Power output from a
lithium-ion cell corresponds to the number of lithium ions that are moved across the cell per
second and is a function of the cross-sectional area (among many, many other factors). When
connecting thousands of cells, the total cross-sectional area scales proportionally with each
additional cell. More cells in a battery pack yields higher power.

Likewise, the energy capacity of a lithium-ion cell is directly related to the volume of lithium in
a cell. Connecting thousands of cells scales capacity proportionally with each additional cell as
well. Therefore more cells in a battery pack also yields higher capacity.

The Effect of Coupled Power and Capacity

This poses the unique fact that the power and capacity of a lithium-ion battery are inherently
coupled by cross-sectional area, which is a fancy way of saying increasing battery cell count
results in higher capacity and higher power (if all cells are equal). More cells in a battery
results in a larger volume and a larger cross-sectional area. Therefore increasing battery
capacity through the addition of cells intrinsically increases power, given constant chemistry,
temperature, and other specifics. This idea of coupled power and capacity of lithium-ion
batteries is the base of where the claims of 4-hour duration arise.

Coupling between two desirable traits is actually quite uncommon. Usually in the engineering
world, we must sacrifice some of one good trait to improve another. Think speaker quality
sacrificed to improve portability or engine weight sacrificed for power. In fact, the coupling of
power and capacity in lithium-ion batteries has been a key asset of Tesla’s appeal. Car buyers
wanting to pay for more mileage on a charge seem to also be getting faster acceleration out of
the kindness of Elon Musk’s heart, but really it’s just the physics of lithium-ion batteries that
brought you more face-melting 0–60 mph acceleration. Bear in mind this is with respect to cell
count in the car’s battery, not the chemistry, power management, motor efficiency or other
innovations.

Economic Implication to Grid Level

Storage
Okay, but what does this have to do with grid-level storage? Everything. If a utility wants to
install a grid-scale battery with a large capacity, it must also pay for an unnecessary increase
in power. What is an advantageous asset to electric vehicles poses a serious hurdle for
lithium-ion grid-level storage. Other electrochemical storage solutions such as flow batteries
(at varying levels in development), and age-old pumped hydro storage, are solutions that
decouple power and capacity to save resources and achieve a functionality more in line with
what the grid specifications actually call for.

This analysis of lithium-ion duration times can only be complete when considering alternative
solutions that may or may not be more economically viable at different duration times. Since I
will be comparing lithium-ion batteries to solutions that decouple power and capacity, such as
flow batteries and pumped hydro, I’ll give a quick summary for those not familiar.

Flow batteries use massive tanks to store the majority of the chemicals that are then pumped
across the membrane surface to react with chemicals on the other side and discharge energy.
This variant form factor is beneficial because the volume of chemicals in the tank is
independent of the membrane cross-sectional area. The figure below shows a basic
schematic for flow batteries, the important aspect to note is how volume is independent of the
cross-section of the membrane.
 Flow Battery Basic Schematic. Image by Nate Brinkerhoff.

The power is still a function of the cross-sectional area because it corresponds to the number
of reactions per second that occur across the membrane. Capacity, on the other hand, can be
increased by making the tanks larger, a task that will not affect the power. This achieves the
effect of decoupling power and capacity. Grid specifications dictate max power and capacity
separately, thereby wasting no resources on unnecessary power when increasing capacity.

Pumped hydro utilizes the simplest of the fundamental forces — gravity. Pump water uphill for
storing energy, release it downhill to capture it, hopefully with minimal losses. Pumped hydro
decouples power and capacity because the size of the upper reservoir corresponds to
capacity while power is a function of height difference and flow rate.

How Current LCOE Relates to Duration

Times
The eventual proliferation of one of these technologies — reliability, lifetime, and other
technical aspects aside — will come down to a price tag. Utilities will likely purchase based on
the levelized cost of energy (LCOE) of these solutions. LCOE takes the net present value of
all future costs and divides by the net present value of electricity generated over its lifetime, in
$/MWh. The figure below details the duration independent LCOE of lithium-ion batteries
compared to the duration dependent LCOE of flow batteries and pumped hydro from 2017
data.
 Data from “Air-Breathing Aqueous Sulfur Flow Battery for Ultralow-Cost Long-Duration
Electrical Storage.” Chart by Nate Brinkerhoff.

Given the LCOE of these storage solutions, the economics show lithium-ion and other
solutions break even around 4 hours. There, question resolved.

Okay, not so fast. While this is all true, this graph is really meaningless in the face of future
battery LCOE. Lithium-ion, as well as other implemented solutions, will experience economies
of scale and technological innovation that will continue to decrease its LCOE. Setting aside
financial dissimilarities in capital cost and discounting over production lifetime, the question is,
at what rate will these solutions’ LCOE decrease and to what extent?

Future LCOE Estimates and Their Impact

First, I expect lithium-ion battery LCOE to drop faster than the other solutions due to market
forces arising from the proliferation of EVs. As we have seen historically, the market need for
lithium-ion batteries in electric vehicles has brought huge investments into research and
development that have tweaked the supporting cast of chemicals in the cells to greater
efficiencies, capacities, and other desirable traits. In result, costs have plummeted and will
continue to do so.

Such a market force does not exist to fill the sails of either flow batteries or pumped hydro to
drive down their costs at the same rate. So, imagine the horizontal line above for lithium-ion
LCOE lowering relative to the other solutions, and you’ll see the breakeven duration increase.
This mental exercise is example 1 as to why the claim of 4-hour max duration time for lithium-
ion batteries will not continue to hold true. Over time, market forces driving the LCOE of