HyTech has launched a long-term and affordable hydrogen storage method. The firm’s Scalable Energy Storage (SES) competes with big batteries such as Tesla’s Powerwall, and they provide energy storage for businesses, grid-scale storage, or homes. Continuation innovations and investment in renewable energy such as wind and solar will reach someday where the energy produced will be excess of demand. This surplus energy can be converted to hydrogen and store it for future use. Weber (2004) believed that hydrogen energy is the simplest thing that can be made. Some of the energy generated can be injected into the natural gas pipeline, where it reduces the carbon intensity. Another hydrogen can be converted directly to energy using fuel cells. Levi Thompson, Hydrogen Energy Technology Laboratory director of Michigan’s University, sees stationary storage as an amazing opportunity for the utilization of hydrogen fuel cells. The end-to-end hydrogen electrolysis efficiency has been less than that achieved by lithium-ion batteries. Johnson has solved this problem through the use of SES.
HyTech’s SES works by power comes in from sources such as wind turbines or solar panels to run the electrolysis process. The hydrogen produced is bonded as a hybrid and stored in a tank. To avoid compression and make the hybrid bond weak to be waste energy, its efficiency has been improved by Johnson using a clever technique. With most hydrogen storage using fuel cells and huge electrolyzes, this cannot meet the energy demand. Johnson made its system to have stacks of smaller electrolyzes, which can be brought to use as the demand increases. The performance of SES seems to be like a big battery. The main achievement in this system is the increased end-to-end efficiency when compared to other hydrogen competitors.
With SES have lower efficiency than the normal battery, they last much longer for more than 10,000 cycles of charged-and discharged which is higher when compared to around 1,000 cycles of the li-ion battery. Also, SES can be fully charged or discharged without degradation as opposite to batteries. When SES wear out, the metals can be melted down, reused, and the water redistilled. With this innovation, a hybrid solution can be stored with no potential loss. Unlike compressed hydrogen, it does not require to be cooled or pressurized, and it can be stored for a long time as necessary. This makes SES suitable for long-term energy storage and it does not have a limit of energy to be stockpiled.