It always interests me that lithium batteries are used in situations with such different constraints: from mobile phones (lightweight, compact, frequent irregular (dis)charging, etc.) to grid storage (controllable (dis)charging patterns, weight and size are less important).
I wonder which other, less battery-oriented, chemical reactions have been investigated for grid storage. For example, non-rechargable aluminium batteries have been suggested for electric cars ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium%E2%80%93air_battery ); I could certainly imagine a substation topping up the grid by corroding a huge heap of metal (aluminium is abundant, but heavier materials could be used since they don't need to be mobile).
The interesting dynamic with such non-rechargable "batteries" is how they're manufactured: they would come from surplus production at times of abundant energy. AFAIK energy-intensive processes like aluminium smelting are already used to balance the grid (either directly, with contracts between both parties; or indirectly, by changing energy prices).
Are the round-trip efficiencies of such reactions too low? Are the energy quantities too low? Would this just be an indirect (and hence less efficient) form of the existing load balancing?
The problem is "lithium batteries" is too wide category. There are vastly different chemistries that just happen to have lithium in them that all get grouped into "lithium batteries". All those applications you mention, for most they each have their own dedicated chemistry.
I wonder which other, less battery-oriented, chemical reactions have been investigated for grid storage. For example, non-rechargable aluminium batteries have been suggested for electric cars ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium%E2%80%93air_battery ); I could certainly imagine a substation topping up the grid by corroding a huge heap of metal (aluminium is abundant, but heavier materials could be used since they don't need to be mobile).
The interesting dynamic with such non-rechargable "batteries" is how they're manufactured: they would come from surplus production at times of abundant energy. AFAIK energy-intensive processes like aluminium smelting are already used to balance the grid (either directly, with contracts between both parties; or indirectly, by changing energy prices).
Are the round-trip efficiencies of such reactions too low? Are the energy quantities too low? Would this just be an indirect (and hence less efficient) form of the existing load balancing?