Form Energy and its iron batteries

Form Energy 及其铁电池

Form Energy is building iron-based batteries that can store energy for multiple days. The company is ramping up supply at its factory and signing deals for commercial projects. Form Energy 正在制造一种可以储存多日电能的铁基电池。该公司目前正在提高其工厂的产能，并签署商业项目协议。

New solar and wind installations produce electricity more affordably than fossil fuels in most places, but their output varies based on season, time of day, and weather. To compensate, utilities are increasingly investing in battery storage systems, which can charge when power is abundant and discharge when the grid needs a boost. 在大多数地区，新建太阳能和风能设施的发电成本已低于化石燃料，但其输出功率会随季节、昼夜时间和天气而波动。为了弥补这一缺陷，公用事业公司正越来越多地投资于电池储能系统，这些系统可以在电力充足时充电，并在电网需要电力支持时放电。

Lithium-ion batteries are the fastest-growing storage technology. Although light and energy-dense, they require pricey metals and are costly to scale, and few of the large batteries of this type used in industry are designed to store energy for longer than four to six hours. 锂离子电池是目前增长最快的储能技术。尽管它们重量轻且能量密度高，但需要昂贵的金属，且扩大规模的成本很高。此外，工业中使用的此类大型电池很少有设计用于储存超过四到六小时电能的。

Form Energy wants to build cheaper long-duration energy storage technology. The company has developed a new type of battery, built with a far more abundant and cheaper metal, iron, that can store energy for 100 hours. It uses a process that Form calls “reversible rusting.” During discharge, oxygen from the air converts the iron metal to rust, releasing electrons. When charging, current converts the rust back into iron metal. Form Energy 希望构建更廉价的长时储能技术。该公司开发了一种新型电池，采用储量更丰富、价格更低廉的金属——铁，能够储存 100 小时的电能。它使用了一种 Form 称之为“可逆生锈”的过程：在放电时，空气中的氧气将铁金属转化为铁锈，从而释放电子；在充电时，电流将铁锈还原为铁金属。

Over the past two years, Form has gained commercial traction. It began producing batteries at its West Virginia factory for its first commercial deployment, a 150 megawatt-hour system for Minnesota electricity provider Great River Energy, which is set to come online in 2027. And Form has signed several other deals with power providers. The largest is a project with another Minnesota-based utility, Xcel Energy, where wind and solar power, backed by 30 gigawatt-hours of Form’s batteries, will be used to power a new Google data center. That project is expected to come online in phases between 2028 and 2031. 在过去两年中，Form 获得了商业上的进展。它已开始在西弗吉尼亚州的工厂生产电池，用于其首个商业部署项目——为明尼苏达州电力供应商 Great River Energy 提供一套 150 兆瓦时的系统，该系统预计于 2027 年投入使用。此外，Form 还与其他电力供应商签署了多项协议。其中规模最大的是与另一家明尼苏达州公用事业公司 Xcel Energy 的合作项目，该项目将利用 30 吉瓦时的 Form 电池作为后备，为谷歌的一个新数据中心供电。该项目预计将在 2028 年至 2031 年间分阶段投入使用。

Key indicators / 关键指标

• Industry: Energy storage / 行业： 储能
• Founded: 2017 / 成立时间： 2017 年
• Headquarters: Somerville, Massachusetts, US / 总部： 美国马萨诸塞州萨默维尔
• Notable fact: Once complete, Form’s proposed 30 gigawatt-hour energy storage system at a Google data center in Minnesota could be the world’s largest battery project by energy capacity. / 值得注意的事实： 一旦建成，Form 拟在明尼苏达州谷歌数据中心建设的 30 吉瓦时储能系统，可能成为全球能量容量最大的电池项目。

Potential for impact / 潜在影响

Wind and solar power play a major role in limiting growth in global carbon dioxide emissions. Still, many grid operators depend on fossil fuel plants, especially natural gas ones, to fill gaps caused by periods of low renewable supply or high demand. Form’s batteries are designed to cover multiday supply-demand imbalances, like those that crop up during heat waves, deep freezes, or periods with little sun or wind. 风能和太阳能在限制全球二氧化碳排放增长方面发挥着重要作用。然而，许多电网运营商仍依赖化石燃料电厂（尤其是天然气电厂）来填补可再生能源供应不足或需求高峰期造成的缺口。Form 的电池旨在应对多日的供需失衡，例如在热浪、严寒或少风少光的时期出现的电力缺口。

The company declined to share the current cost of its battery systems, but says its goal is to reach $20 per kilowatt-hour, which would make them cost-competitive with the natural gas alternative. The company’s technology could help reduce emissions from the AI data center boom. AI’s thirst for energy has already delayed closure of aging coal plants, led to the building of new natural gas plants, and caused price hikes for consumers. Cheap energy storage could help renewables meet more of this AI-driven growth in electricity demand. 该公司拒绝透露其电池系统的当前成本，但表示其目标是达到每千瓦时 20 美元，这将使其在成本上与天然气替代方案具有竞争力。该公司的技术有助于减少人工智能数据中心繁荣带来的排放。人工智能对能源的渴求已经推迟了老旧燃煤电厂的关闭，导致了新天然气电厂的建设，并推高了消费者的电价。廉价的储能技术可以帮助可再生能源满足更多由人工智能驱动的电力需求增长。

Caveats / 注意事项

The long-duration storage market is still nascent. Form’s iron-air technology faces a crowded field of approaches, including pumped hydropower, compressed gas, fuel cells, gravitational devices, and flow batteries that store energy in liquids. The economics of multiday batteries, which require large capital expenditures yet frequently sit idle, remain tricky. 长时储能市场仍处于起步阶段。Form 的铁-空气技术面临着众多竞争方案，包括抽水蓄能、压缩空气、燃料电池、重力储能以及将能量储存在液体中的液流电池。多日储能电池的经济性仍然是一个棘手的问题，因为它们需要大量的资本支出，却经常处于闲置状态。

While funding from data center developers could be a major boost, Form also has to prove it can deliver: Its existing production capacity, 2 gigawatt-hours of battery storage per year, is a fraction of the 80 gigawatt-hours it has promised through commercial agreements. Success will hinge on its ability to scale. Another remaining question is the technology’s physical footprint. Form’s batteries, which are stacked together in enclosures the size of shipping containers, require an acre for every two to three megawatts. That means its Google installation would take up the equivalent of at least 75 football fields. 虽然来自数据中心开发商的资金可能是一个巨大的推动力，但 Form 还必须证明其交付能力：其现有的年产能为 2 吉瓦时，仅为其通过商业协议承诺的 80 吉瓦时产能的一小部分。成功与否将取决于其扩大规模的能力。另一个悬而未决的问题是该技术的物理占地面积。Form 的电池堆叠在集装箱大小的机壳中，每两到三兆瓦就需要一英亩土地。这意味着其谷歌项目的占地面积将相当于至少 75 个足球场。

Next steps / 后续步骤

In addition to finalizing its first commercial project, Form is outfitting its factory with new equipment that will help it scale manufacturing to meet its production backlog. It will do so with the help of new financing, announced in August, that brings its total money raised, in addition to West Virginia state and US federal grants, to more than $2 billion. 除了完成其首个商业项目外，Form 正在为其工厂配备新设备，这将有助于扩大制造规模以满足积压的订单。在 8 月宣布的新融资帮助下，加上西弗吉尼亚州和美国联邦政府的拨款，其筹集的总资金已超过 20 亿美元。