this post was submitted on 28 Apr 2026
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Solarpunk technology
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Technology for a Solar-Punk future.
Airships and hydroponic farms...
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I don't care about batteries becoming cheaper. What I care about is them becoming safer.
I had far too many sudden spicy pillows in devices this year, I'd prefer something that isn't as dangerous as Lithium-Ion.
Iron redox flow batteries are inherently safer than vanadium redox flow batteries.
All types of redox flow batteries - in difference to lithium ion batteries of the NMC (nickel manganese cobalt) type - can't have thermal runaway; lithium iron phosphate batteries, which are typically used for grid/home storage are safe from thermal runaway as well.
It's going to be a key to unlocking proper grid-scale energy storage.
For example, in my country, there's decent solar output from about april to october at most. November to February we just sit in the dark, the sun barely rises at all. With li-ion, the cost to store enough energy in the summer months to use it in the winter would be at least 100x for the batteries compared to the solar panels themselves. Not the least of our issues is that energy usage in winter is significantly bigger than summer, largely due to increasing number of heat pumps and the fact that EVs require way more electricity in the winter for the same distance as well.
Wind helps out in the winter, but mostly we're at the mercy of fossil fuels, whereas in the summer we have nothing to do with our plentiful solar energy so the price often goes negative, meaning if anyone accidentally sells their power to the grid, they have to pay for the privilege.
Personally I don't significantly care about batteries becoming safer. I do care about them becoming cheaper. I've not had a single spicy pillow on anything I've owned, only seen them at work when I refurbished laptops.
In the medium term, I'm hopeful for technology like this:
https://www.photoncycle.com/
That's mostly interesting for flat places that can't use pumped hydro to store energy, like the Netherlands or Denmark....
Netherlands nd Denmark can use hydro-storage in Norway.
They don't have a closed national grid.
Yeah, subscription model innovation, just what I need. The "technology" also looks sketchy to me, some vague talk about solar power, hydrogen generation by electrolysis and underground storage.
Looks like a savage idea. Unfortunately it's also subscription based.
Yeah if it was more than the 10 MWh they've mentioned on their website, perhaps it would be good enough for my house. But I think I reached over 2000 kWh of electricity consumption a month this winter thanks to my heat pump and possibly more than that in briquettes that I use for my central heating furnace. The 10,000 kWh they talk about is sadly not enough for my soviet-era built house, nor is my roof big enough for a meaningful amount of solar (it's complicated... big house, small roof, not all of the roof useable for solar). If I'd have to get 2 or 3 units and they end up costing me significantly more than the 300€ a month? No thanks. My highest electricity bill in the winter was about 330€ and yes, I also burned about 500€ worth of wood briquettes that month, but in the summer I pay less than 100€ and this was a freakishly cold winter, so normally it wouldn't cost as much (and I'm also now older and wiser and will keep a bigger stockpile because the prices do go up in the winter, something I've experienced before).
I totally agree. Hopefully the approach works and isn't locked by some horrible patents so that other companies are prevented from actually selling it.