If the U.S. converts to a carbon-free grid, millions of homeowners may want to generate and store their own solar power. Companies are already jockeying over that potentially massive market and the commercial contest revolves around safety.
Tesla and LG Chem currently dominate the U.S. home battery market. Both use the lithium-nickel-manganese-cobalt-oxide (NMC) chemistry favored by the electric vehicle industry. In cars, the goal is to pack as much energy into as little space as possible. That comes with a tradeoff: the potential for cells to heat up and kick off a chain reaction that can end with fire and, in enclosed spaces, explosion.
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Itâs only a little over three years ago that Elon Musk boasted he could help South Australia solve a looming energy crisis by installing a big battery in less than 100 days for under $100 million.
At the time the plan was met with scepticism by some, outright derision by others. Then-treasurer Scott Morrison compared the proposal with the Big Banana: âI mean, honestly, by all means have the worldâs biggest battery, have the worldâs biggest banana, have the worldâs biggest prawn like we have on the roadsides around the country, but that is not solving the problem.â
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The head of the worldâs largest private investor has asked companies to disclose plans on how they intend to reshape their businesses to operate in a net-zero economy.
In his hugely influential annual letter to chief executives, Larry Fink, the founder and chief executive of BlackRock, an investment management firm with more than $10 trillion of funds in its care, said rather than distracting global financial markets from the climate crisis, the coronavirus pandemic has accelerated the response to it.
Larry Fink, chief executive officer of BlackRock Inc., speaks during a Bloomberg event on the opening day of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, last year.