Abu Dhabi Commissions World’s Largest Storage Battery

The battery could potentially power the city of Abu Dhabi for six hours in case of a failure in the main grid. Otherwise, it will serve a function as a load balancer for the network.

Abu Dhabi has commissioned a grid-scale deployment of a sodium-sulphur storage battery with a capacity of 108 MW/646 MWH battery in the desert. Taking over as the world’s largest storage facility from Tesla’s 100 MW/129 MWH Hornsdale facility in Australia, which is primarily used to provide network security to the South Australian grid for sudden failures.

The Sodium Sulphur technology, though originally developed by the US’s Ford Motors, was sold to Japan’s NGK, due to the volatility of the materials used, especially sodium, which can explode when in contact with water.

On the other hand, unlike market favourites Lithium and Cobalt batteries, both sodium and sulphur availability is not an issue. The biggest challenge with technology will remain the handling and isolation from any potential contact with moisture. Both of which will bump up the price point for the systems.

The Abu Dhabi battery is 10 connected batteries manufactured by NGK, which have been linked to act as one ’virtual battery’. The battery could potentially power the city of Abu Dhabi for six hours in case of a failure in the main grid. Otherwise, it will serve a function as a load balancer for the network.

Abu Dhabi has envisaged a plan to source 60% of its energy from renewables by 2050. An ambitious $160 billion plan has been put in place for investments in renewable energy. With its record battery, it has ensured that attention will stay focused on the performance of its new battery, as other countries look at ways to solve the storage challenge, which could potentially be the biggest disruptor in the energy sector since the discovery of electricity itself.