Lithium Battery Energy Storage in Industry

What is energy storage?

Energy storage refers to the conversion of energy into a more stable form of existence in a certain way, which is stored and released as needed.According to the length of the energy storage time, the energy storage system can be divided into several hours or more, minutes to hours, seconds, etc.According to the principle of energy storage, it can be divided into physical energy storage, electrochemical energy storage, electromagnetic energy storage, etc.

Classification of energy storage

Physical energy storage includes pumped energy storage, compressed air, flywheel energy storage, hydrogen storage, etc., which are mainly used in work scenarios at multi hours level. Electrochemical energy storage includes sodium-sulfur batteries, flow batteries, lithium-ion batteries, etc., which are mainly used in work scenarios from minutes to hours. Electromagnetic energy storage includes supercapacitor energy storage, superconducting energy storage, etc., which are mainly used in second-level work scenarios. At present, the most widely used is water storage and energy storage, which accounts for more than 70% of the world.

Physical energy storage: The advantage is that the cost is low and the disadvantage is that the efficiency is low. Besides, some physical energy storage cannot control the discharging speed. Due to those disadvantages, at present, the new installed capacity of physical energy storage has stagnated. 

 Picture 1. Pumped energy storage

Chemical energy storage: there are sodium-sulfur batteries, liquid flow batteries, lead-carbon batteries, and lithium batteries. But in terms of current technology, the best technology is lithium batteries. Currently, ternary lithium batteries and lithium iron phosphate batteries are most popular in the mainstream market. Lithium iron phosphate batteries have low energy density, but they have advantages in cycle life, safety, and cost. Ternary lithium batteries have higher energy density. However, it has a lower cycle of life, higher cost and Many people in this market think that the characteristics of lithium batteries are more suitable for energy storage scenarios, which is the current development trend of electrochemical energy storage.

 Picture 2. Flywheel energy storage system

 Picture 3. Lithium battery storage system

Second-level energy storage: The so-called second-level energy storage is an energy storage method that suddenly releases a large amount of energy within 1-5 seconds. There are two types of technologies, namely supercapacitor energy storage and flywheel energy storage. Flywheel energy storage is a technology that uses physical methods to store energy. The principle is to use the inertia of a high-speed rotating flywheel to store energy. However, due to its physical attribute, the energy cost of friction is inevitable. Supercapacitor can discharge in a very short time. Whereas, its applications on energy storage systems are under investigation.  

 Picture 4. Super capacitor

Supercapacitor battery

Different with super capacitors,  supercapacitor batteries belong to the comparably mature lithium battery energy storage system. It combines the features of the super capacitor with the li-ion battery so that it performs better than normal lithium battery energy storage systems in terms of discharging magnification, lower temperature performance and cycle of life. Now, Enerbond is the only producer in China that produces supercapacitor batteries. If you have a need for lithium battery energy storage systems, please pay a visit to enerbond.com.