Edmonton entrepreneur is turning salt water into affordable energy storage

Aug 25

Keith Cleland works on the battery prototype for Aqua-Cell at the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology. Photo courtesy: NAIT

By Patricia Lane & Keith Cleland

Keith Cleland’s alchemy turns salt and water into affordable, scalable energy storage. This 31-year-old from Edmonton co-founded and runs Aqua-Cell Energy, producing affordable sustainable battery storage that can scale to stabilize the renewable grid.

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Solar and wind are the cheapest forms of energy, and batteries make them reliable. While battery prices have been falling, conventional batteries rely on lithium, nickel and cobalt and other expensive and rare materials. If increasing demand for electricity is to be met, batteries will have to be made differently.

We harness the use of novel membrane technologies developed for water treatment to store and retrieve electrical energy powered by simple, readily-available materials: salt and water.

Each Aqua-Cell modular container contains battery stacks and storage tanks that pump salt water in a continuous, closed loop flow circuit. When electricity is applied to the salt water, if the battery stacks are charged, the energy is stored. By reversing the process, we can retrieve the stored energy in the form of electricity. If we need more batteries, we just add more modules. If we need longer duration storage, we simply increase the amount of salt water in the system. Flow batteries have a unique ability to decouple energy from power.

Current infrastructure cannot meet the growing demand for electricity. Using our batteries, grid providers can defer expensive substation upgrades for years at a fraction of the cost.

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Edmonton entrepreneur is turning salt water into affordable energy storage

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