A battery powered by corrosion? Dutch company aims to store energy for up to four days

Ore Energy is developing batteries that promise cost-effective balancing of electricity generation from renewable sources for up to four days. After months of pilot testing, it has secured funding to enable construction of its first manufacturing plant. Companies in the United States and India are working on the same technology. Czech research is also pursuing its own path to low-cost energy storage.

Dutch startup Ore Energy has unveiled a concept for battery systems capable of storing energy for up to 100 hours. Iron-air batteries are also, somewhat figuratively, described as being powered by corrosion. Their operating principle is based on oxidation at iron electrodes, which causes corrosion. At this stage, the battery is discharging; during the reverse reduction process, it charges.

The technology itself is not exactly new. It was already being studied in 1968, though at the time with the aim of powering electric vehicles. Without pressure for decarbonisation, however, it remained virtually unused for decades. It was revived only in response to the growing deployment of intermittent renewable energy sources. Co-founder and CEO Aytaç Yilmaz said in an interview that the theoretical foundations were developed by a research group at Delft University of Technology, from which Ore Energy emerged.