Form Energy's Vision and its New Energy Storage Pilot with Great River Energy
Monday, May 18, 2020 at 9:12AM Grant Gerke 
Great River Energy, the second largest utility in Minnesota, is launching a pilot program with Form Energy to implement 1MW of renewable energy along with 150MWh of "long-form" energy storage in Cambridge, MN. For many, energy storage technology conjures up lithium-ion battery technology and four hour bursts of supplemental power for utility scale operations. However, Form Energy's nascent solution relies on long-duration batteries, based on "aqueous-air" battery technology that according to the company "leverages some of the safest, cheapest, most abundant materials on the planet."
For this application, Form Energy will produce 150 continuous hours of rated power. According to ARPA-e, a governmental energy body, the technology uses low cost and high abundance sulfur in a water-based solution, and MIT research demonstrated that aqueous sulfur flow batteries represent the lowest chemical cost among rechargeable batteries."