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tahanson43206 wrote: ↑Sat Apr 04, 2026 1:22 am This sure seems like a good fit for Mars. The technology might have to be adjusted a bit for the Martian environment.

Discussion of how that would be done might be a good fit for this topic.

A little digging on Google turns up the following:

Iron Perchlorate Redox Flow Battery (IPRFB)

• Cold Resilience: Iron perchlorate electrolytes can remain liquid at temperatures as low as −78 °C, whereas standard chloride or sulfate flow batteries freeze and fail at much higher temperatures.
• ISRU Suitability: Iron, perchlorates, and water are abundant in Martian regolith and subsurface brines, allowing for local production.
• Performance: IPRFB systems can retain 56% of their room-temperature capacity at −50 °C, outperforming iron chloride systems, which lose functionality.
• Thermal Stability: Perchlorate ions act as natural antifreeze, mitigating the need for energy-intensive thermal management systems.
• Scalability & Decoupling: Like all flow batteries, IPRFB systems decouple power (cell stack size) from energy capacity (tank size), making them ideal for long-duration energy storage during dust storms.

This post is reserved for an index to posts that may be contributed by NewMars members:

LDES Long Duration Energy Storage

This sure seems like a good fit for Mars. The technology might have to be adjusted a bit for the Martian environment.

Discussion of how that would be done might be a good fit for this topic.

Index:

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Another hard one to categorize.

On Mars (and anywhere else) the lowest cost forms of renewable energy suffer from an intermittency problem. Battery storage is essential to the future on this planet and beyond.

I am especially interested in Long Duration Energy Storage (LDES). These tend to be 'flow' batteries that charge and discharge slower than Lithium Ion (any sub type). Their secret sauce is that although they are big and heavy and inappropriate for transportation needs, they shine at utility grid level storage. The materials are much less expensive (more abundant) and far less dangerous. A leading technology is known as "iron-air" and works by rusting iron and reversing the reaction when energy needs to be stored. There is no runaway fire danger like with Lithium Ion. And the Levelized Cost per unit is far and away more attractive.

Texas recently passed California for battery storage in the United States. Yes, THAT Texas*! That has mostly been sub 4 hour Lithium Ion storage but projects with 8 - 100+ hour capacity are now underway. I detail two large ones currently under construction.

Abilene AI Factory (Form Energy / Crusoe):

This project was announced in March 2026 at CERAWeek in Houston. Form Energy will supply 12 GWh of iron-air batteries (100-hour duration) to support Crusoe's 2.1 GW AI campus in Abilene. Expected to be fully online by Q3 2026.


Lupinus I & II (Sunraycer / Canadian Solar):

These are standalone projects located in Franklin County, with a total of 503 MWh using Canadian Solar’s SolBank 3.0 technology. Construction began in March 2026. Lupinus 2 is expected to be online by Q2 2027, and Lupinus 1 by Q3 2027.


* There is a lot of Libertarian idealism in the state and it has long been driven by oil and gas billionaires with a government regulation allergy. They came up with an idea they thought would make the Oil and Gas industry in the state more money, forever, namely deregulating substantially all of the state's Electrical Utilities. A fig leaf was offered to the left wing of the capital building of a 1% renewable energy requirement on the grid within 10 years. It was met almost immediately and has never had to be enforced. As renewables have become cheaper than fossils for 95% (and growing) of greenfield applications, wind and solar have started being installed in great volume. ERCOT guarantees a market for the production. Substantially all new projects currently in planning include onsite battery storage. Increasingly these are long duration flow batteries.