by Brianna Crandall — December 4, 2015—PBES, a global provider of battery storage for industrial applications, just announced what it calls the world’s first-ever commercialized thermal runaway suppression system. The system is designed to suppress and prevent the effect of cascading thermal runaway even in systems that have sustained significant physical damage.
Brent Perry, chief executive of PBES, comments:
The historic challenge for lithium batteries has always been that they can catch fire. No More. Our team of industry-leading pioneers has developed a solution that effectively stops thermal runaway.
This advance in lithium energy storage reportedly represents the first fire-safe lithium battery system ever, managing safety at the cell level and effectively removing a significant barrier in the marketplace.
In multiple tests, without a single failure, PBES says it has demonstrated kilowatt-to-megawatt scalability to completely control and eliminate thermal runaway. Until now, thermal runaway mitigation in a commercially available product has never before been achieved, claims PBES–a Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) team successfully stopped thermal runaway, but it was in a lab setting using liquid nitrogen for cooling.
The incorporation of the patent-pending Thermal-Stop, CellCool and E-Vent systems, combined with an industry-leading advanced energy management system, is engineered to provide safety and protection from the cell level up to the system level.
PBES says the lithium battery storage is ideally suited for: renewable energy to grid, grid-based systems, industrial marine, port machinery, commercial transportation, data center uninterruptible power supply (UPS), defense and homeland security, island and other off-grid or remote community applications.
Perry adds:
The harder a system works, the better energy storage can support it, and the faster the customer’s return on investment. Modeled on the standards of the IEC and the third-party class group type approval criteria of DNV-GL, Lloyds Register and American Bureau of Shipping, PBES engineered solutions are the template for energy storage for the next twenty years.
Perry is attending the COP21 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris this week, where he is presenting on lithium battery safety, advancing energy storage technology, and the impact of energy storage on the environment in industrial, marine and grid applications in global markets.
PBES solutions are currently offered with NMC and Titanate cell chemistry, with performance starting at 3C RMS, and lifespan up to 10 years. Payback is typically within one to three years, says the company.
PBES invites observers to see the company’s new thermal runaway suppression technology for themselves. Participants can register by e-mail to observe the company’s advanced batteries safely being pushed to previously unthinkable levels in Q1 2016 in Canada or Sweden.
