A company that originally made a name for itself with gravity-based energy storage tech – and has since focused on conventional lithium-ion batteries – has written a deal for a sodium ion battery targeted at data centres that also includes Australia.

Energy Vault has signed a development partnership, and an offtake agreement for 1.5 gigawatt hours (GWh) of sodium ion batteries, with US-based Peak Energy, the latest in a number of deals signed by the sodium battery technology developer.

The plan is to pair Energy Vault’s battery management software with the sodium chemistry so the big storage units can handle the “extreme and volatile loads” of AI-first data centres.

Sodium ion batteries are emerging as potentially the next big thing in energy storage, feted for using much less expensive sodium over lithium, faster charging abilities, and safety profile which avoids the risk of thermal runaway.

To get here, manufacturers have had to figure out how to deal with the lower energy density of sodium compared to lithium and improve the number of cycles the chemistry can handle.

The Swiss-domiciled Energy Vault says that combining sodium ion batteries with its in-house software can reduce data centres’ reliance on traditional UPS systems as well as lower their cooling requirements.

Crucially, using AI to micro-manage the energy needs of a data centre also means it can offer flexible services to the grid – and possibly avoid the higher network charges regulators around the world are beginning to impose on the sector for its high demand, low flexibility requirements.

“The rapid growth of AI is exposing fundamental limitations in conventional power infrastructure,” Energy Vault’s Marco Terruzzin said in a statement.

“This solution enables faster deployment, lower cost, and improved safety by combining Energy Vault’s integration platform with Peak’s sodium-ion technology.”

The company suggests that by buying US-made batteries, which still attract Domestic Content Investment Tax Credits, its data centre-oriented batteries should be able to compete financially with lithium ion alternatives.

Indeed, Peak Energy chief Landon Mossburg suggested that the sodium ion-software package could speed up grid access for data centres – a key issue particularly in Australia where permitting processes come with lengthy timelines.

Peak Energy recently signed a 4.75 GWh deal with Jupiter Energy, following the completion of the first grid-scale sodium battery in Denver, Colorado.

Energy Vault has the exclusive rights to sell the tech into Japan and Australia, which it describes as two of the world’s “most constrained and high value energy markets”.

Energy Vault has a number of projects in Australia, where it signed up to build the 250 MW, 1000 MW battery at the contentious Meadow Creek solar project back in 2022 when it was deeply focused on its original gravity idea – but then at only half the duration.

Early last year it won a major contract with the Victoria-government owned State Electricity Commission to build and operate the 100 MW/200 MWh battery next to a 119 MW solar farm at Horsham. The SEC said it liked the technology Energy Vault offered as it had both AC-coupled and DC-coupled options.

A month later it agreed to buy the 125 MW, 1000 MWh Stoney Creek battery project near Narrabri from Australian developer Enervest.

The Swiss company actually started out promising a gravity storage concept.

It began construction on its first commercial scale 25 megawatt (MW), 100 megawatt hour (MWh) system in 2022, in Jiangsu Province outside of Shanghai in China. That was followed by a second, the 17 MW, 68 MWh Zhangye in Gansu province the following year.

The company has largely reinvented itself as a purveyor of battery storage however and mainly in Australia and the US.

But that’s not to say it’s completely lost its alt-tech attitude: it is also venturing into small modular reactor technology, taking a punt on a US company called NuCube Energy which is supplying the reactor to pair with the same energy management software being rolled out with the Peak sodium batteries.

More information:https://reneweconomy.com.au/us-companies-sign-deal-that-could-bring-giant-sodium-batteries-to-australia-for-data-centres/