Alevo unveils utility-scale energy storage solution

This is the aim of Alevo, a company based in Switzerland that has revealed details of its new utility-scale lithium batteries and data analytics system, plus its new manufacturing facility in Concord, North Carolina that will produce GridBanks.

GridBanks are shipping containers filled with Alevo’s batteries that are rated to provide 2MW of power (1MWh of energy) per unit for use as capacitance – storage - points on electrical grids.

The active ingredients inside the batteries - which are recyclable and do not require active cooling or a battery management unit - are LFP (lithium ferrophosphate) and graphite. Alevo’s lithium cell also contains an inorganic electrolyte that is completely non-flammable.

‘The electrolyte is incredibly robust, it can take up to a hundred times current draw compared to any other electrolyte we looked at,’ Jostein Eikeland, chairman and CEO Alevo Group told The Engineer.

Furthermore, the focus on inorganic materials has given the batteries two important properties, namely: thermodynamic stability that allows the batteries to return to the same state following each charging cycle; and an electrochemical loop to regulate overcharge and deep discharge conditions, thereby completely minimising battery degradation.