Solar & Aluminum ion batteries

doctheclown

Have just been reading about aluminum ion batteries and how much cheaper they will be, any thoughts on how long until the are in production for home solar?  They could change the discussion about costs and ROI quite a bit.

MattMattMattUK

doctheclown said:

Have just been reading about aluminum ion batteries and how much cheaper they will be, any thoughts on how long until the are in production for home solar?  They could change the discussion about costs and ROI quite a bit.

Likely a decade or more if ever, there are lots of issues to overcome before they could even scale production, let alone release a viable product.

doctheclown

Tesla ssems to be working on it:
https://elonbuzz.com/2025-tesla-super-aluminum-ion-battery-finally-hits-the-market/
So was hoping it would be sooner - wishful thinking maybe...

Martyn1981

Quick and simple appraisal of the big leap in the technology earlier this year in Dave Borlace's video from the 'Just Have a Think' channel. Looks promising, but early days, so I wouldn't hold my breath for any domestic units till next decade.

Perhaps the most important thing about the development of other battery technologies/chemistries, is that it spreads the material/mineral load wider, helping to avoid high prices for conventional lithium batteries, as demand grows.

A rechargeable aluminium battery with 99% capacity after 10,000 cycles! Too good to be true??

Aluminium offers a promising alternative to lithium for the batteries of the future...in theory! The trouble is it's been very difficult to make a rechargeable version work reliably in the real world. Now a group of researchers in China reckon they've cracked it. But is it just another bit of 'hopium'?

QrizB

doctheclown said:

Tesla ssems to be working on it:
https://elonbuzz.com/2025-tesla-super-aluminum-ion-battery-finally-hits-the-market/
So was hoping it would be sooner - wishful thinking maybe...

That entire article says "vaporware" to me.

If there's still fundamental science to do (like the paper I link to below), rather than just industrialisation and mass-production, it's nowhere close to being rolled out. 5-10 years, maybe?
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acscentsci.4c01615

Screwdriva

^ Agree 100%. I wouldn't hold your breath for anything other than incremental improvements for the foreseeable. 

born_again

If it's anything like solid state batteries & Sodium.

It ill be a long wait.

Netexporter

Sodium ion batteries are in production. However, the claims that they may be 10% of the price of lithium ion may be a way down the line. Midsummer are marketing a sodium ion home battery but it is about double the cost of LFP. The major advantage of sodium ion is its working temperature range, which goes well below anything we see here.

QrizB

Netexporter said:

Sodium ion batteries are in production.

Not sure whether to share this news article here or on one of the "... in the news" threads:

Peak Energy ships first grid-scale sodium-ion battery

https://www.power-eng.com/energy-storage/peak-energy-ships-first-grid-scale-sodium-ion-battery/

3.5 MWh, which isn't exactly huge but is a definite step in the right direction.

The article states, quite optimistically, that the US has a natural advantage in this technology due to having the world's largest deposits of soda ash (sodium carbonate). That might be true but there plenty of sodium in other places to, eg. the sea ...

ed110220

You can already buy lithium iron phosphate prismatic cells for £45/kWh retail so I think batteries are now much like solar where installation accounts for most of the cost. Batteries aren't as far along as PV, but I don't expect falling cell prices and new technologies to bring installed prices down that much. Probably more important is getting home batteries from fairly niche products with corresponding high markups to more mass market level.

Magnitio

born_again said:

If it's anything like solid state batteries & Sodium.

It ill be a long wait.

Semi-solid state batteries are already available and being used in a number of products.