NantEnergy Announces Largest Global Deployment of Novel Air Breathing Zinc Rechargeable Battery System and Breakthrough in Cost Barrier
Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, Chairman of NantEnergy and Founder of
NantWorks, made the announcement at One Planet Summit in New
York highlighting the global environmental impact of the world’s safest
and most reliable green rechargeable battery system which has now
reached the breakthrough manufacturing cost at below $100 per kilowatt
hour
NantEnergy
today announced a breakthrough in its six-year mission to develop the
world’s first scalable air breathing zinc rechargeable battery system at
a manufacturing cost below $100 kWh and to operate this
intelligent digitally controlled system on a global scale.
This green rechargeable battery, an air-breathing cell, uses just zinc
and air, integrated with digitally
controlled intelligence. The energy system is monitored in real time in
the cloud and has been successfully deployed in nine countries with more
than 3,000 systems supporting 110 villages and 1,000
installations across cell tower sites. Over 100 patents cover this
breakthrough zinc-air technology which represents an important
alternative to lithium-ion batteries.
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NantEnergy’s rechargeable green, air breathing zinc battery
technology has now broken the manufacturing cost barrier of $100 per
kilowatt hour, announced at the One Planet Summit. Manufacturing at
scale will be available in 2019, providing a competitive source of
energy compared to other energy storage technologies, making carbon free
energy affordable and accessible in developing countries.
News in Brief:
-
NantEnergy announces largest global deployment
of a novel air breathing zinc rechargeable battery – 3,000
installations in nine countries – has broken the $100 per kilowatt
hour barrier.
-
Microgrids of air breathing zinc rechargeable batteries with
solar-powered storage are now providing sole source of power to more
than 200,000 people in over 110 communities in Africa and Asia.
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Air breathing zinc rechargeable batteries are now deployed at over
1,000 telecom sites in the United States, Mexico, Southeast Asia,
Central and Latin America.
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Sized to provide hours to days of load support to microgrids
and telecom cell towers and designed to have a near 100% uptime
requirement.
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Eliminated the need for 1 million dangerous lead-acid batteries.
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Offset over 4 million liters of diesel fuel.
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Prevented the discharge of 10,000 metric tons of CO2 in
2017 alone and over 50,000 metric tons since 2012 (equivalent to the CO2
emission from 10,000 cars in one year)
NantEnergy’s mission is to combine technology and nature to deliver
reliable, affordable green energy to everyone, while avoiding the use of
lithium, lead or fossil fuel sources of energy. The technology began
with Thomas Edison who had tried to create a rechargeable zinc-derived
battery, but the problem of zinc rechargeability bedeviled him. Over 100
years later, NantEnergy has solved that problem and has proven the
viability and global scalability of deployment of the system. Now tested
and refined for over the past six years, with the $100 per kWh barrier
broken, large scale deployment can begin.
“The concept of adapting nature and biology to address the issues facing
our planet, including the need to reduce hydrocarbons, is fundamental to
our work at NANT. Our air-breathing rechargeable zinc smart storage
system epitomizes this vision. This is the first energy system that
combines zinc, an essential mineral energy source needed for prenatal
growth and the human body, with oxygen, an essential gas needed by every
living cell, with the power of the sun to generate a chemical reaction
in a sustained, repeatable, rechargeable manner, generating electrons
and energy. By harnessing biology, chemistry, the air and the sun, we
are designing energy sources of the future to electrify the world,” said
Patrick Soon-Shiong, MD, Chairman of NantEnergy, Founder of NantWorks.
“Zinc occurs naturally in the earth and in the food we eat; it is
healthful and abundant,” Soon-Shiong continued. “The desire to develop
zinc as a source of rechargeable energy has eluded scientists for a
century and I am so proud of our scientific team who have made this
important breakthrough. By harnessing nature and technology, we have
created a path to solve carbon and other types of pollution and
establish low-cost, decentralized energy which can provide power to
people everywhere,” said Soon-Shiong, who is also Chairman and CEO of
NantWorks.
During the One Planet Summit in New York, Soon-Shiong noted that these
green, air-breathing batteries avoid lithium and cobalt, replace diesel
and lead-acid batteries, and present no risk of fire or
environmental contamination.
“We have made the safest, de-risked, globally-deployed system in the
world with a six-year history of over 1,000,000 cycles to date,” said
Chuck Ensign, Chief Executive Officer of NantEnergy. “It’s remarkable
because this eliminates the need for lead, lithium and cobalt, which are
scarce and dangerous materials.”
“The combination of the technology, using intelligent software and the
cloud, and nature, using solar, oxygen and zinc, have made this a truly
scalable energy solution for the world,” explained Ramkumar
Krishnan, NantEnergy’s Chief Technology Officer. “Over the past six
years, we’ve worked to bring the cost down so that we can make this
green energy more widely available.”
“The proven deployment of the NantEnergy air breathing zinc cell storage
system, together with clear pathway to sub $100 kWh costs, is a
potential game-changer for affordable electricity and reducing
hydrocarbon usage in emerging market countries. This is particularly
compelling in our markets where we see an increasing penetration of
renewables. An affordable energy storage can deliver real results in off
grid and island environments,” said Sean Petersen, Principal Investment
Officer, International Finance Corporation (IFC) Venture Capital. The
International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank, is
an investor in this technology.
About
NantEnergy
NantEnergy,
formerly Fluidic Energy, is dedicated to accelerating the worldwide
transformation to clean, reliable energy through its innovative and
intelligent energy storage solutions. Enabled by groundbreaking battery
technology and smart-grid intelligence, NantEnergy designs, manufactures
and markets long-duration energy storage solutions globally. As the
first company to deliver rechargeable zinc-air battery technology in
high production volumes, NantEnergy has over 120,000 batteries globally
with its industry leading whole product approach. NantEnergy continues
to build momentum as the long-duration energy storage leader, installing
systems worldwide that increase reliability, functionality and surpass
cost targets necessary for practical energy storage adoption. While
meeting market needs now, NantEnergy is paving the path for the smart,
sustainable and accessible grid of the future.
About NantEnergy’s Air Breathing Zinc Rechargeable Battery System
NantEnergy’s mission is to combine technology and nature to deliver
reliable, affordable green energy to everyone. The technology began with
Thomas Edison who had tried to create a rechargeable zinc-derived
battery, but the problem bedeviled him. Over 100 years later, NantEnergy
has solved that problem and has proven the viability and global
scalability of deployment of the system. Now tested and refined for over
the past six years, with the $100 per kWh barrier broken, large scale
deployment can begin.
The concept of adapting nature and biology to address the issues facing
our planet, including the need to reduce hydrocarbons, is fundamental
to the work at NANT. The air-breathing zinc rechargeable smart storage
system epitomizes this vision. This is the first energy system that
integrates zinc, an essential mineral energy source needed by the human
body, with oxygen, an essential gas needed by every living cell, with
the power of the sun to generate a chemical reaction in a sustained,
repeatable, rechargeable manner, generating electrons
and energy. By harnessing biology, chemistry, the air and the sun,
NantEnergy is designing energy sources of the future to electrify the
world.
Zinc occurs naturally in the earth, and in the foods we eat; it is
healthful and abundant. The desire to develop zinc as a source of
rechargeable energy has eluded scientists for a century. By harnessing
nature and technology, NantEnergy has created a path to solve carbon and
other types of pollution and establish low-cost, decentralized energy
which can provide power to people everywhere.
How It Works: In Microgrids, Our System Generates Energy as Follows:
-
When sun is available, electricity is generated from photovoltaic
solar panels and in the charge process, Zn Air
battery system uses this electricity to convert zinc oxide to zinc and
oxygen.
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This electrochemical reaction generates zinc which serves as a storage form
of energy.
-
In the discharge process, the battery system
converts the electrochemical energy from the zinc by combining
(oxidizing) the zinc with oxygen from air, generating electrons.
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Thus, the cycle is from electricity generated from
multiple sources, to zinc storage, via an electrochemical reaction,
and then, to electrons leading to the transmission of electricity.
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The breakthrough is in the ability of our system
not only for zinc to retain its ability to charge for
prolonged periods of time, but also for the cycle of charging
and discharging of zinc to be sustained over 1,000s of repeated
cycles without deterioration.
-
By breaching the manufacturing barrier of $100 kWh, we can electrify
the world anywhere everywhere.
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