Energy: the first individual battery that stores electricity in the form of hydrogen

Today's innovation could completely disconnect a home from the electricity grid.

It is the first individual battery that stores electricity in the form of hydrogen.

When you have solar panels on the roof and want to disconnect from the electricity grid, you have to be able to store the electricity generated, on days when it is sunny, to be able to use it when it is not. there is not any.

Until now, the only way to do this has been with lithium-ion batteries.

Except that they take up a lot of space and are full of toxic elements.

Now, there is a new type of battery, more compact, more ecological, since it is a hydrogen battery.

What does it mean ?

That we recharge it with hydrogen?

No, it is the battery itself that will produce its hydrogen.

It is connected, on one side to the solar panels, and on the other, to a water inlet.

She will use the overflow of electricity to do electrolysis: decompose the water into hydrogen and oxygen.

This hydrogen will then be stored in the battery.

And on bad weather days, it will be used to generate electricity.

Lavo, an Australian startup, is the first to offer this type of battery.

Advantage over lithium-ion: it offers three times the capacity of equivalent size.

A small cabinet one meter by 1.60 meter will store, for example, the equivalent of two days of electricity consumption of a household.

What are the disadvantages ?

First, it's more expensive: 20,000 euros, twice as much as lithium-ion.

And then there is the problem of the flammability of hydrogen.

Even if the case is well protected, there is always a risk of explosion in the event of a fire.

It is all the same, one more solution to store energy.

An ecological solution.

But we are sorely lacking today.