PHENOGY inaugurates the first sodium ion storage facility in Europe
Root/Bremen - PHENOGY has commissioned the first European large-scale sodium-ion storage facility in Bremen. Based on non-hazardous and locally available salts, the pioneering technology developed by the company headquartered at Technopark Luzern is intended to replace imported lithium as a storage medium for renewable energies.
According to its press release, PHENOGY AG has celebrated a milestone: Founded back in 2019 as Clean Cell Holding AG in Cham in the Swiss canton of Zug and now headquartered at Technopark Luzern, the company has commenced operations at its first sodium ion storage facility based at its solar energy partner SOLARES in Bremen, Germany. «We are proud to make sustainable energy, regional independence and social resilience a directly tangible experience through the PHENOGY 1.0», the company states.
Instead of the lithium that the world depends on and which is mined with great environmental impact in Chile, for example, the large-scale sodium ion storage facility contains sodium chloride, i.e., table salt, and sodium carbonate, otherwise known as baking soda. «Sodium salt is available right across the world and is very easy to process using methods similar to those seen today in relation to lithium production», as Managing Director Peter Braun says in a video report covering the opening of the facility shown on Norddeutscher Rundfunk. «It is about 90 percent identical, which means that we can scale up very quickly and produce this technology in large volume», he adds.
In addition to the huge dependency on lithium as a raw materials, it also poses risks: «If it starts to burn, or if a problem arises, hydrofluoric acid is formed when it comes into contact with water, which is highly toxic», as John Erik Toft, who is responsible for business development at PHENOGY, explains in the film report. «In our case, salt water is produced, which of course we happily swim in at the beach».
As the report explains further, the company now intends to launch series production. On its journey to market-readiness, PHENOGY states that it is collaborating with the Fraunhofer Institute for Silicon Technology ISIT in addition to the Exentis Group as a premium partner for manufacturing. As CEO Braun recently announced, the company is also currently weighing up the possibility of bolstering its presence in Singapore.
