This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project is intended to establish the feasibility of a novel sodium-sulfur FLOW battery for use in the storage of power generated from wind farms and solar arrays, which represent two of America's best options for reducing its dependence on foreign oil. Because of their variable rates of power generation, both need some form of power storage system in order to distribute the power produced more evenly. Sodium-sulfur (NaS) batteries produced commercially today have high power density and represent a viable choice for power storage; however, the current versions are bulky, expensive and operate at 350 °C. The project will investigate critically needed scientific data in support of the development of a novel flow NaS battery that has the potential to (1) operate at temperatures as low as 50 °C and (2) reduce the cost of battery NaS storage systems by as much as 50%. This project will isolate each of the critical elements of such a battery and assemble/test a planar 50 W feasibility demonstration of the battery that operates at 50 °C or less and the results should serve as the foundation for subsequent scaled up development to 5 kW. The broader/commercial impact of this project will be a viable, large-scale power storage system for wind farms and solar power systems. If power produced by wind increases at the rate projected by the Department of Energy from 11.6 GW in 2006 to 300 GW in 2030, the total market for storage batteries is estimated to be $60 billion over the next 22 years. It is also estimated that as much as 10,000 MW of solar thermal power could come on stream in the next ten years providing an addition market for new storage batteries for that application of an estimated $10.5 billion. In addition, a flow NaS battery developed to be developed by this project can be used in the desulfurization of petroleum streams producing an additional market of over $10 billion through 2030. The basic concept and design of the sodium sulfur battery has remained essentially unchanged since its discovery the 40 years ago; and the proposed flow battery represents such a departure from the previous design that it has the potential to create new markets that have not been previously considered suitable for high temperature batteries
