EnStorage and Princeton Power to Develop HBr Energy Storage with BIRD Money
Princeton Power Systems and EnStorage Israel Ltd. announced today that they have been awarded a $950,000 grant from the Israel-U.S. Binational Industrial Research and Development Foundation (BIRD). The grant will support the commercialization and deployment of an energy storage system based on EnStorage's proprietary hydrogen bromide (HBr) flow battery and Princeton Power Systems' inverters and site controller. The first system will be deployed to support a photovoltaic (PV) installation and would be able to support the grid for at least six hours per day for a minimum of 20 years. The commercial system will be a 150kW/900kWhr containerized system, to be based on EnStorage's grid connected 50kW/100kWhr technology demonstrator.
"The BIRD Foundation grant will enable our companies to develop a comprehensive solution for PV installations and various other applications," said Marshall Cohen, Chairman of Princeton Power Systems. "We aim to develop inverters as well as software for EnStorage's HBr technology to add to our long-term energy-storage offering."
"Our partnership with Princeton Power Systems will allow us to expedite the commercialization of our technology," said Arnon Blum, CEO of EnStorage. "The ability to deploy our battery at a customer site and rely on Princeton Power Systems' experience in optimizing the interaction between the grid and our battery's performance will serve as a significant step for future deployments."
EnStorage flow batteries utilize HBr and H2 as storage chemicals. Abundance of these materials reduces the chemical cost by 95% compared to other batteries, making it the most affordable flow battery in the market. Moreover, the battery’s proprietary conversion stacks has demonstrated over 3 times the power densities compared to other batteries, making it smaller and lower in cost.
“We believe that by making energy storage simple and affordable we can tackle the major issues facing the energy sector,†continued Dr. Blum “EnStorage batteries can firm up renewable energy by eliminating intermittency, align energy availability with demand for load leveling and peak shaving, defer transmission and distribution upgrades, and provide instant congestion relief, solving immediate grid constraints."
EnStorage grew out of a need to provide utilities and large-scale industrial clients a cost-effective and reliable way to store energy. The company has scaled from a one watt lab proof-of-concept single cell system, to the recently operational, multi-stack full system. During this period, the system's components have been put through extensive testing that proved stable operations during 10,000 cycles. EnStorage's HBr technology breakthroughs are covered by an extensive IP portfolio, which includes the core technology, materials, membrane and operations.
