GE starts mass production of sodium-nickel battery

The U.S. technology giant General Electric has invested 100 million U.S. dollars in a new factory in upstate New York. The plant in Schenectady will employ up to 450 people and new kinds of batteries, which are based on a sodium-nickel-Chemistry, Technology Review reported in its online edition. The current memory should be more durable than conventional lead acid batteries. Main purpose, buffer solutions: Electricity from renewable sources like wind or solar power will thus be cached, to stand by in times of low production.



 The first customer is the South African company Megatron Federal, which will use the batteries to power their mobile towers in Nigeria, which are powered by diesel generators to power. The combination of the generators with the new batteries allow more efficient use. "It saves 53 percent on fuel costs, 45 percent of repair costs and replacement costs up to 60 percent during the term," says Brandon Harcus, head of telecommunications at Megatron Federal. "For our application in Nigeria are the big cost savings -. Approximately $ 1.3 million over 20 years per cell tower We clearly use less fuel and produce less CO2." The main advantage of GE's battery for this application compared to lead acid batteries is the fact that it loads faster - about two hours compared to ten. Furthermore, no complex cooling is required, which reduces diesel consumption. The batteries are expected GE to the kilowatt-hour more expensive than lead acid batteries, but will last longer - especially if the battery packs are often deeply discharged. In some areas of lead batteries stop here by just six months. The sodium-nickel batteries GE will have to fully discharge the other hand, to 3500 times. This corresponds approximately to a lifetime of 10 years.