With the energy transition well underway, energy storage options, including zinc batteries, have been building capacity to meet demand. The International Zinc Association developed the Zinc Battery Initiative to serve as the voice of this safe and sustainable technology and promote its many advantages. Now that zinc batteries have achieved a pivotal milestone–reaching more than one billion dollars in combined private and public investments and announcing a half-dozen new and expanded factory builds–maintaining this momentum and investment for promising cleantech is imperative to keeping the energy transition on track.
The current power grid, as demonstrated last spring by the major blackout leaving an estimated 60 million people without power in Spain and Portugal, serves as a warning to modernize existing structures to build a resilient grid that includes the energy storage required to supply a steady source of power. Rechargeable zinc batteries, along with many other sustainable technologies, can provide the safe, sustainable, low-cost power for as long as 100 hours when needed.
COMMENTARY
In the face of this demonstrated need for more energy storage, a recent move to reverse globalization through changing trade agreements and increasing tariffs threatens the progression of this burgeoning industry. Countries backing away from their prudent investments in both renewable energy and the energy storage needed to support it and provide stability to the power grid will be replaced by others eager to fill the gap and gain supremacy in the technologies that will power tomorrow’s power grid.
How the leading zinc battery manufacturers are managing this apparent retrenchment is instructive. Zinc-bromine battery developer Eos Energy Enterprises recently entered its first presciently timed international agreement with United Kingdom energy developer Frontier Power Ltd. for a 5-GWh energy storage framework agreement, part of the UK’s new cap-and-floor scheme to incentivize investment in long duration energy storage. The plan ensures energy developers receive a minimum return while at the same time capping exorbitant profits, so that both investors and consumers benefit from the plan. The Eos-Frontier agreement is anticipated to lead to expanded collaboration globally.
This is a major step forward for Eos, which was nurtured by a mix of private investment and U.S. Department of Energy dollars and serves as a role model for building industry in the United States. Eos has located its manufacturing capacity outside Pittsburgh in Turtle Creek, Pennsylvania, former home of Westinghouse Electric Company’s active campus, employing thousands during World War II. Eos is building its 8 GWh-capacity Pennsylvania manufacturing plant with the support of a DOE $303.5 million loan guarantee program, with the goal of producing enough energy storage annually to supply 300,000 homes.
Like Eos, Canadian-based e-Zinc proceeded with its ambitious rollout, opening its pilot manufacturing facility in Mississauga, Ontario last December. The 42,000-square-foot facility hosts e-Zinc’s headquarters as well as its research operations and manufacturing of its long-duration zinc-air batteries. E-Zinc has benefitted from ample private investments in addition to support from Canada through the Sustainable Development Technology Canada and Natural Resources Canada.
While the continued implementation of the U.S.’s Inflation Reduction Act, which funded the research and demonstration projects and manufacturing incentives needed to support many promising technologies, appears to be in limbo, U.S. zinc battery manufacturers are forging ahead with expansion plans, building on their initial successes and private investments. Nickel-zinc battery manufacturer Zinc Five is building a factory in Oregon with Phase 1 focusing on technology transfer from China to the U.S. and then planning for an eventual expansion. In Missouri, nickel-zinc battery manufacturer AEsir Technologies announced the expansion of its Joplin plant in order to fulfill additional contracts with the U.S. Navy to supply large-format battery cells.
AEsir also is benefiting from its recent partnership with mining leader Hindustan Zinc. India is a leading investor in renewable energy, and Hindustan Zinc and AEsir share the goal of creating a battery manufacturing facility in India. AEsir Technologies will bring its battery technology to India, and Hindustan Zinc will help to establish large-scale manufacturing capacity. The partnership aligns with India’s shift toward renewable energy and its need for reliable energy storage solutions.
Asia is investing heavily in both renewable energy and energy storage technologies, and not only in India. China has long served as the leading producer of solar arrays, and Hong Kong-based GP Energy Tech recently announced plans to build a manufacturing facility and research center within the Johor-Singapore Special Economic Zone in Johor Bahru, Malaysia. Gold Peak is investing approximately $150 million to produce nickel-zinc batteries and will begin production on its pilot line later this year with the goal of meeting the energy demand of critical infrastructure, particularly data centers, as well as smart industrial applications.
Despite current economic uncertainty caused by potential tariffs and trade wars, the technologies of the energy transition are moving forward, as evidenced by the further development and expansion of zinc battery manufacturers. While a change in funding could slow progress, the energy transition already is well underway, and the only certain prediction is that those sitting on the sidelines of this movement are sure to be left in the dark.
—Josef Daniel-Ivad leads the Zinc Battery Initiative.
