Microgrid developer Gridscape and distributed power systems developer Scalvy are partnering to deploy multi-chemistry battery energy storage systems in California, the companies announced today.
The initiative, which is funded by the California Energy Commission, aims to build storage that is able to use both lithium-ion and sodium-ion chemistries within the same system. Mohamed Badawy, Scalvy CEO and co-founder, says the idea is to maximize the flexibility and performance of a battery while keeping costs down.
“Every battery chemistry has its own sweet spot,” Badawy told Latitude Media, explaining that sodium-ion can provide a lot of power over shorter periods of time, while lithium-ion is well-suited for delivering sustained energy over longer durations. “Combining them is a great idea to get the best of both sweet spots.”
The resulting storage system is designed to deliver the flexibility increasingly required by grid-connected loads, from standard peak-shaving to absorbing the rapid power fluctuations of AI data centers.
Despite its potential advantages, commercial deployments of multi-chemistry energy storage remain rare, with most existing projects simply co-locating separate chemistry types on the same site, rather than integrating them within a single unified system. The reason for that, according to Badawy, is that “it’s very difficult” to have one centralized power conversion system that works regardless of which chemistry it’s handling.
