As reported by The Independent, a team from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) believe they may have a cheaper and cleaner alternative to lithium-ion batteries for the large scale storage of electricity produced from renewable sources. And it turns out that the greater part of the technology is over 140 years old.

I am no scientist so I will not delve too deeply into the technical aspects in this blog. However, iron-air batteries, which were first invented in 1878, are said to have a higher energy density to the popular lithium-ion batteries and are made from (you guessed it) iron (an abundantly available metal) and atmospheric oxygen.

These batteries were previously considered impractical due to rusting which prevented them from being recharged. But the team from MIT believe they have solved this problem, which would allow for the delivery of 100 hours of clean electricity at a cost of $20 kilowatts per hour, compared to the $200 kilowatts per hour of lithium-ion batteries. The potential result being greater storage capacity for renewal energy projects to help keep the lights on in periods of low production.

We are already seeing some renewable energy project developers including provision in their plans for on-site battery storage. If cheaper technology with higher storage capacity becomes available, we can expect on-site storage to become the norm. In the meantime, we should expect developers to require greater flexibility for storage in their leases as this and other storage technologies continue to evolve.