How This ZincGel Technology Can Address Global Gap In Battery Storage Segment
As India steps up its efforts to meet its ambitious renewable energy target of reaching an installed renewable generation capacity of 500 GW by 2030, energy storage will play a vital role. Solar and Wind Energy together, at present, constitute the largest chunk in India’s installed renewable generation capacity. However, their intermittency on the grid is a challenge that a robust energy storage infrastructure can solve.
The Union Budget 2022 emphasised giving impetus to the storage industry by providing infrastructure status to battery energy storage systems. The Budget has proposed that energy storage systems, including dense charging infrastructure and grid-scale battery systems, be included in the harmonised list of infrastructure. Union Power Minister R K Singh said the announced provisions would improve the credit facility for big projects.
Energy storage, in terms of sustainable efficiency, is at the cusp of global transition, with battery storage being an enabling keystone. Mapping the next five years, the energy storage market globally is going to be about $100 billion, and, specifically, within India, it is expected to attain 10-15 per cent of the market share.
Lithium-Ion technology’s dominance
When it comes to contemporary battery solutions, mainly in stationary applications, they mark lithium-ion as the leader. A November 2021 report by the International Energy Agency (IEA) noted that the technology mix in energy storage in 2020 remained largely unchanged. Lithium-ion battery storage continued to be the most widely used, making up the majority of all new capacity installed.
However, this technology comes with certain drawbacks. Its major drawbacks lie in sourcing ecologically friendly raw materials that are non-flammable in nature, besides being cost-efficient.
Tapping these drawbacks, Tejas Kusurkar envisioned Offgrid Energy Labs to revolutionise the global energy storage market with its disruptive chemistry, democratised materials, and indigenous electrode design in stationery and mobility application.
The ZincGel Technology
Offgrid Energy Labs leverages the breakthrough science behind ZincGel battery technology and its global potential in sectors like renewable energy storage, microgrids, utility, and EV charging.
“Currently, there are numerous battery storage technologies imperative to energy transition but mostly fail to achieve, either reliable market penetration or sustainability aspects. The rise of renewable energy storage has emphasised its underlying problem of cost-effectiveness. The cost of storage via lithium-ion or any other existing technology is not commercially viable and difficult at the same time,” says Tejas Kusurkar, Co-founder & CEO, Offgrid Energy Labs.
ZincGel is Offgrid Energy Labs’ original innovation in battery technology. With effective modifications in 150-year-old Zinc and Manganese-Dioxide chemistry, the team led by Kusurkar has developed ZincGel battery technology– a consequence of multiple Intellectual Properties in three distinctive areas––materials, chemistry, and design.
They have invented a new class of electrolytes never used before in battery technology. Secondly, they have configured a combination of sustainable and commonly available raw materials worldwide, and this will help decentralise the manufacturing of ZincGel batteries to any part of the world. And thirdly, they have tailored the industrial design aspects in such a way that it is modular to elaborate, customised battery packs that can be created for varied energy storage applications basis unique requirements.
“Benefiting from these three ground-breaking novelties behind ZincGel battery technology, we aim to preserve advantages of increased efficiency and reduced cost in battery storage, in both the stationary as well as mobility applications,” says Kusurkar.
Kusurkar is confident that this technology will outperform conventional battery technology in terms of power density, battery life and energy efficiency and cost.
Moreover, compared to Lithium-ion manufacturing, where the Giga factories require substantial capital investments, ZincGel battery technology ushers in innovation in its materials and design, allowing any existing infrastructure to adapt to the manufacturing of ZincGel batteries at a minimal cost.
Backed by global investors
Offgrid Energy Labs is backed by leading global investors, Shell Ventures, Ankur Capital, APVC Singapore. It has also identified specific retail applications for renewable energy and EV charging. It has partnered with Tata Power, Shell, and others, projecting a pilot starting September 2022, followed by a validation process.
“We believe energy transformation will happen not just by one company or single technology; rather it will be a conglomerate of technology, applications, manufacturing and materials. Being one of the fewer technologies that are accessible and available worldwide basis applications, we are 18 months away from our market-launch,” says Kusurkar.
As EVs gain momentum, a key speculation for the future of energy storage is the extent to which EV technology developments can spill over into grid-scale batteries. The IEA report notes that EV battery manufacturers aim to continually develop greater energy density to reduce upfront costs and increase EV range, but this has little impact on stationary applications, for which size and weight are secondary considerations. Therefore, as supply chains advance to the next higher-performing blend or chemistry, technology that may become less attractive for EVs can be deployed at a lower cost for stationary applications on the grid.
Analysts believe that lithium will be hard to beat as it takes about a decade to develop and scale up new technologies and second because world over countries have aggressive timelines towards renewable energy and EVs. Nonetheless, Offgrid Energy Labs, with its ZincGel technology, offers a great potential to diversify the global energy storage market and the related technologies around it.
