By Steven Minnihan

Hot on the heels of NGK Insulators' recent success with its sodium sulfur (NaS) battery, the Korean steel producer POSCO recently announced that it has completed development of its own NaS battery. POSCO claimed that it completed development in under a year, and that the battery will last more than 15 years.

If POSCO intends for the battery to be used for daily peak shaving operations, this translates into a cycle life of nearly 5,500 full cycles, a 20% improvement over NGK's battery. However, the steel producer does not expect to complete commercialization until 2015.

NGK has seen noteworthy success with its NaS battery in the Japanese and North American markets. If industry rumors hold true and Rubenius purchases NGK's entire output for the next six years, then POSCO will have the advantage of being the only available NaS supplier for a short period (assuming it adheres to its commercialization timeline).

Meanwhile, molten-salt competitors GE Transportation and FIAMM have released no news of sales contracts for their sodium nickel chloride batteries since the companies entered the market earlier this year.

Expect to see more players entering the molten-salt battery market in the near future. Unlike lithium-ion batteries, the playing field for molten salt is sparsely populated, containing only the four competitors mentioned above. While the technology currently offers lower cycle life than lithium-ion, its low cost of $300/kWh puts the technology just below economic viability for large-scale energy applications.

Lux analysis shows that a 12% reduction in the capital cost will make molten salt economically viable in regional markets including California, which recently set a soft timeline for mandating grid-scale energy storage. If California's financial woes hamper its energy storage target, a 25% reduction in capital will be needed to capture other regional markets.

The combination of increased production scale and competition should be enough to drive down the cost over the next five years and make molten salt economically viable. Therefore, those considering this market should make their decision immediately in order to enter the fray while competition is limited. While the market for molten salt is still developing, expect it to develop steadily during a client's development and commercialization process.

Steven Minnihan is an analyst for Lux Research, which provides strategic advice and on-going intelligence for emerging technologies. For more information, visit the Lux Research site.

More on this topic …

Nevada and Sicily, Italy Will Use Molten Salt for Solar Energy Storage

Smart Grid Storage: GE and FIAMM Target Molten Salt Batteries. But Can They Compete with NGK?

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