pv magazine: Urban Electric Power’s long-term storage solution takes battery storage back to the basics
On a quest to set themselves apart and find the optimal storage solution, companies have toyed with existing battery chemistries and invented their own. One startup, backed by the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), has found an approach that’s been in front of us the whole time.
That company is Urban Electric Power and its technology is alkaline batteries – think AA in a flashlight. Just saying “alkaline” doesn’t tell the full story, however, as Sanjoy Banerjee, CEO and Ann Marie Augustus, VP of operations told pv magazine.
The Urban Electric story began 12 years ago, when the company received an Advanced Research Projects Agency–Energy (ARPA-E) Grant for $6 million to design something for the grid, specifically a storage solution that would be comparable in cost to pumped hydrogen, yet not as geographically exclusive. When looking at battery technologies and chemistries, zinc and manganese dioxide made the most sense, as both were already being widely used for battery cells and their supply chains were well established.