الجمعة، 10 يناير 2014

Quinone Battery to make solar and wind power cheaper

We all know that biggest hurdle for solar and wind energy popularity is their cost of batteries.If cost of storage becomes cheaper by some innovation in battery manufacturing, renewable energy can become great competitor for traditional sources of energy such as coal.


Why storage of electricity is important for renewable energy and not for conventional energy?
 With conventional sources, we get constant supply of electricity and because energy source can be supplied as per need but in renewable energy, energy source is not in our hand and can't be supplied constantly and that's why storage plays very vital role in renewable energy. To understand its importance more, we can also take example of wind farm, which generate electricity 24x7 while we require more electricity at the day time in comparison to night. So, extra energy generated at the night time can be stored and supplied latter when required.

What is the solution?

Harvard University researches developed new type of battery with the help of organic material Quinone on the negative side and bromine which is toxic in nature on the positive side. Now scientist are finding ways to replace bromine with some other form of organic material. Quinone can be synthesized from the plant called Rhubarb.Moreover, once functional, these new batteries will reduce the cost of batteries by 2/3 of their current cost well below the $100 per kilowatt-hour benchmark set by United States Department of Energy.