GreenHy2 secures H2Core deal to advance supercapacitor and hydrogen storage technologies

Solid state hydrogen storage developer GreenHy2 (ASX: H2G) has signed a contract with European technology supplier H2Core to provide leading-edge storage solution technologies.

The H2Core deals are part of a wider series of new technology negotiations currently in progress.

The agreements include new supercapacitor batteries and hydrogen technologies, which the company says have a number of significant advantages over previous technologies both in price and commercial readiness.

Commercially competitive

GreenHy2 managing director Dr Paul Dalgleish said that, by utilising graphene supercapacitors, the new battery solutions are now commercially competitive due to revolutionary low-cost manufacturing techniques.

He said the significant reduction in cost for the graphene-based solution now provides the benefits of lithium-ion (Li-ion) and hydrogen combined.

They also significantly outperform hybrid batteries, which are partially supercapacitor and partially Li-ion.

Seasonal energy storage

“Supercapacitor batteries and low-pressure hydrogen storage solutions both have their place […] and where supercapacitors will replace Li-ion solutions, hydrogen is still well-placed to provide seasonal energy storage shift due to its virtually nil self-discharge rate,” he said.

“The limitation until now of providing large-scale supercapacitor batteries has been cost.”

“However advances in manufacturing graphene have made it possible to provide the majority of storage in supercapacitors and take advantage of their considerable benefits over other technologies.”

Exceptionally long life

According to GreenHy2, the new storage technology provides exceptionally long life of 500,000 cycles at cell level and delivers between 25 to 40 years of life at three cycles per day, compared to six to 10 years for lithium-ion and 30 years for hydrogen.

The company suggests it is extremely safe compared to lithium and that the supercapacitors are simpler to use than hydrogen.

“Li-ion has significant fire risk both due to thermal runaway and the intensity of the fire, making it almost impossible to contain once ignited,” Dr Dalgleish said.

“The fire risk for our supercapacitor batteries is extremely low.”