Hippy SteveXcel Energy has signed an electric service agreement to power a Google data center with 1,400 MW of wind, 200 MW of solar, and 300 MW of long‑duration energy storage.
It's that last part that's significant. It's an iron‑air battery system from Form Energy. With about 30 gigawatt‑hours (GWh) of capacity and a duration of roughly 100 hours.
This looks like the future of grid-scale storage. I doubt sodium-ion will be able to compete with the cost and capacity. All it needs is Iron, Air, and Water in a process that essentially releases energy as the iron rusts, then stores energy by turning the rust back into iron and oxygen. At a cost of about $20/kWh - 4x less than lithium batteries.
