Battery Systems

Our first commercial product using our iron-air technology is optimized to store electricity for 100 hours at system costs competitive with legacy power plants. This product is our first step to tackling the biggest barrier to deep decarbonization: making renewable energy available when and where it’s needed, even during multiple days of extreme weather, grid outages, or periods of low renewable generation.

Form’s internal analytics predict that over the next decade, achieving Form’s cost and performance targets will unlock tens of gigawatts of demand for multi-day storage in the U.S. and accelerate the country’s trajectory towards a fully decarbonized and more reliable and resilient grid. At such levels of deployment, Form’s technology will catalyze billions of dollars in savings to American electricity consumers.

• Firmed renewables over any weather event or season
• Transmission capacity expansion and optimization without new wires
• Reliability without thermal generation
• Resilience during multi-day grid events

• Deep grid decarbonization with lower costs and risk
• Grid reliability and safety
• Local economic development
• Improved local air quality
• Job creation through manufacturing and assembly

• The basic principle of operation is reversible rusting
• While discharging, the battery breathes in oxygen from the air and converts iron metal to rust
• While charging, the application of an electrical current converts the rust back to iron and the battery breathes out oxygen

Each individual battery module is about the size of a side-by-side washer/dryer set and contains a stack of approximately 50 one meter-tall cells. The cells include iron and air electrodes, the parts of the battery that enable the electrochemical reactions to store and discharge electricity. Each of these cells are filled with water-based, non-flammable electrolyte, like the electrolyte used in AA batteries.

These battery modules are grouped together in environmentally protected enclosures. Hundreds of these enclosures are grouped together in modular megawatt-scale power blocks. Depending on the system size, tens to hundreds of these power blocks will be connected to the electricity grid. For scale, in its least dense configuration, a one megawatt system comprises half an acre of land. Higher density configurations would achieve >3 MW/acre.

Our battery systems can be sited anywhere, even in urban areas, to meet utility-scale energy needs. Our batteries complement the function of lithium-ion batteries, allowing for an optimal balance of our technology and lithium-ion batteries to deliver the lowest-cost renewable and reliable electric system year-round.

LOW-COST
Stores energy at less than 1/10th the cost of lithium-ion battery technology.

OPTIMIZABLE
Pairs well with lithium-ion batteries and renewable energy resources to enable optimal energy system configurations.

RELIABLE
Delivers 100+ hour duration required to make wind, water, and solar reliable, year round, anywhere in the world.

MODULAR
Can be sited anywhere for utility-scale needs.

SCALABLE
Materials and designs with global scale needed for zero carbon economy.

SAFE
No risk of thermal runaway. No heavy metals. High recyclability.