All Episodes

November 29, 2023 13 mins

0️⃣ What's your favorite zero-emission load following dispatchable resource to enable green baseload? What even *is* green baseload?! For this episode, Mark Wanamaker of Lockheed Martin Energy Storage joins BioZen Batteries' CEO Nate Kirchhofer to discuss one possible answer to that question: Lockheed Martin's GridStar™ Flow Batteries!

This technology was acquired from MIT-spinout Sun Catalytics in 2014 and has been under development since then, and the aqueous electrolytes can't catch fire, don't degrade based on use case or state of charge (SOC), and don't need thermal management, all serving to lower the cost. Lockheed Martin was also recently awarded a 1 MW / 10 MWh project at Fort Carson Army Base run by the Department of Defence Army Corps of Engineers Engineering Research and Development Center Construction Engineering Research Lab (DOD ACE ERDC CERL), an encouraging pilot microgrid project.

Flow batteries are typically thought of as long-duration (>6 hour discharge) energy storage, but Mark makes the case that they are even economically viable for replacing gas peaker plants or combined cycle plants too. Mark shares a key insight that energy storage system developers need to simultaneously consider bankability, flexibility, future adaptability to changing markets, and separation of Power and Energy capacity to tailor a storage system—in addition to more conventional metrics like levelized cost of storage (LCOS) or capex measured in $/kWh. The DOE thinks flow batteries need to get under $0.05/kWh, and we think we can!

Recorded 6 September 2023.

[BioZen Batteries produces this show as part of the Clean Power Media Group at cleanpower.media. If you would like to interact more, please send us an email at hello@biozenbatteries.com, write a comment, like, follow, share, or even leave us a voice message on your favorite episodes. If you like our content, please support production with a recurring monthly donation here: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/beyondlithium/support]

Mark as Played

Advertise With Us

Popular Podcasts

Stuff You Should Know
My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark

My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark

My Favorite Murder is a true crime comedy podcast hosted by Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark. Each week, Karen and Georgia share compelling true crimes and hometown stories from friends and listeners. Since MFM launched in January of 2016, Karen and Georgia have shared their lifelong interest in true crime and have covered stories of infamous serial killers like the Night Stalker, mysterious cold cases, captivating cults, incredible survivor stories and important events from history like the Tulsa race massacre of 1921. My Favorite Murder is part of the Exactly Right podcast network that provides a platform for bold, creative voices to bring to life provocative, entertaining and relatable stories for audiences everywhere. The Exactly Right roster of podcasts covers a variety of topics including historic true crime, comedic interviews and news, science, pop culture and more. Podcasts on the network include Buried Bones with Kate Winkler Dawson and Paul Holes, That's Messed Up: An SVU Podcast, This Podcast Will Kill You, Bananas and more.

Dateline NBC

Dateline NBC

Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com

Music, radio and podcasts, all free. Listen online or download the iHeart App.

Connect

© 2025 iHeartMedia, Inc.