this post was submitted on 03 May 2026
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A giant pit in Switzerland will soon house the world's most powerful redox flow battery (newatlas.com)
submitted 2 months ago by Lemmynated@lemmy.zip to c/technology@lemmy.zip
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[–] Ludicrous0251@piefed.zip 20 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

"We will be able to inject or absorb up to 1.2 gigawatt-hours (GWh) of electricity in a few milliseconds," FlexBase co-founder Marcel Aumer told Swiss public broadcaster RTS earlier this month.

No. No you will not. I'm gonna go ahead and call bullshit. Like the sum total of all shit from every bull to have ever existed and to exist in the future combined.

1.2 GWh in "a few" milliseconds (let's generously call that 100ms) is ~43 Petawatts. Peak power demand in the US is only ~800 GW. Globally maybe a few TW (<10?).

Depending on which search result you click, the earth receives between 89 and 175 PW of solar radiation. This is the actual fucking Sun levels of power.

This is especially bullshit because flow batteries are specifically designed to decouple power and energy, allowing them to store waaay more energy without all that pesky power infrastructure.

~~I'm not the Swiss government but I would think twice about buying anything from that particular snake oil salesman.~~ Edit: see below, statement is fine, translation is bullshit.

[–] arty@feddit.org 9 points 2 months ago (2 children)

This is an incorrect translation of the original sentence: Nous pouvons injecter ou absorber en quelques millisecondes jusqu'à 1,2 gigawatt d’électricité, soit l’équivalent de la puissance de la centrale nucléaire de Leibstadt."

[–] MalReynolds@piefed.social 5 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Care to offer a correct translation?

[–] arty@feddit.org 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

It's just about 1.2 GW of power

[–] MalReynolds@piefed.social 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Sure, a random translation site gives "We can inject or absorb up to 1.2 gigawatts of electricity in milliseconds, the equivalent of the power of the nucleus plan", one assumes nucleus plan goes to nuclear plant.

It's the use of 1.2 GW in milliseconds that is at question as it's close to physically impossible and would impress the guys who made CERN.

Still super cool if it's actually just 1.2GWh in a pit (with a reasonable lack of toxicity), personally happy to call it a win with some overzealous reporting / marketing and forget about the whole milliseconds bit.

[–] arty@feddit.org 1 points 2 months ago

What’s a common timeframe for a utility-scale battery storage to start providing power? I heard that this type is the best in responsiveness, though I don’t have the exact numbers. A quick search shows me numbers up to 50 milliseconds though.

[–] Orygin@sh.itjust.works 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

The phrasing in French suggests they can start injecting that power in millisecond and they have 1.2GW/h capacity

[–] MalReynolds@piefed.social 1 points 2 months ago

Ah, now it makes sense. Thanks.

[–] Ludicrous0251@piefed.zip 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Whew okay, I rescind my snake oil comment, but I do question anyone building a system this size who doesnt splurge for the extra 1% capacity to reach 1.21 jiggawatts!

[–] MalReynolds@piefed.social 2 points 2 months ago

@88mph we have some fun!

[–] tofu@lemmy.nocturnal.garden 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Can you ELI5 what the decoupling of power and energy means? Don't they need power infrastructure (Trafos?) for in/out?

[–] Ludicrous0251@piefed.zip 5 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Normally batteries are sealed systems, consisting of something, typically liquid, that stores electrons (electrolyte) and something that keeps the electrolyte in place and allows only the electrons to go in/out (electrodes).

The amount of electrolyte you have determines how much energy you can store, and the area of the electrode determines how quickly you can move those electrons in/out.

The coin cell in your watch is an electrode/electrolyte sandwich. AA-style batteries are a bunch of coin cells stacked together. Car batteries are a bunch of AA-style batteries stacked together. This is done for a myriad of reasons dealing with the safety and efficacy of how batteries work, beyond the scope of an ELI5.

Since all of these batteries use the same coin cell base unit, as batteries get bigger and bigger the ratio of electrode to electrolyte stays fixed, so if you ever want to store more energy, even if you don't care about how quickly it charges/discharges, you have to have more electrode material, which is heavy, expensive, etc.

To fix this, people started making flow batteries, which consist of a smaller assembly that resembles a typical battery electrode/electrolyte sandwich, but now with tanks to hold extra electrolyte liquid. This liquid is pumped in as needed, and that allows you to store a lot more energy in your electrolyte without spending big on extra electrodes. It also has other cool properties like longer storage times without leaking as much power (self discharge) as a traditional sealed battery because now you can fully isolate the electrolyte with say a couple of valves.

Since flow batteries are designed for more energy storage with lower power output, it was ironic that the article math worked out to the power equivalent of the sun's impact on Earth.

Lengthy explainer but hope it helps!

[–] tofu@lemmy.nocturnal.garden 1 points 2 months ago

Thanks a lot. Think I got it!