California bets on iron-salt battery power to protect against wildfire
Iron and salt batteries in ceramic tubes have less risk of fire than lithium-ion batteries
Energy inlyte
An iron and salt battery could provide emergency power – without the threat of fire – near one of the oldest California redwood forests.
The 200 kilowatt battery will be twinned with solar panels on the Redwoods Alliance Conference in Sonoma County, California. This installation is in a strong risk zone of strong forest in a sequoia forest, and is only 16 kilometers from the state of state of state of state of state, which houses some of the largest and oldest trees in California. During extreme weather conditions and forest fires, firefighters and evacuates count on the conference site, but it is also vulnerable to electricity failures.
“The way we examined technology is, how could we do a safe, abundant and low cost energy storage system,” said Ben Kaun at Inlyte Energy in California. “And that led us to very large cells with a very cheap and abundant active material, iron and salt.”
The battery project could offer up to two weeks of emergency safeguarding power once it becomes operational in 2027. This could keep the lights on in the conference field and also provide energy to a nearby fire control water pumping station – without putting emblematic in danger.
Indeed, these originally easy battery materials – powdered iron and salt contained in a ceramic tube – are also non -flammable. “We can put these fairly close-up batteries and battery cells without any kind of risk of fire and explosion, which is a main problem with the packaging of tons of lithium-ion batteries,” explains Kaun.
Lithium-ion batteries in smartphones or electric cars sometimes take fire, and this risk can be amplified when many batteries are grouped in large energy storage plants. In January 2025, for example, a fire in the largest battery storage installation in the world in California destroyed 300 megawatts of energy storage. In comparison, inlyte iron salt batteries could store energy with a much lower risk. The salt salt battery project has received just over $ 4 million in funding from the American energy department to improve energy resilience in the region subject to forest fires near the Sequoias forest.
“These non -flammable batteries seem to be an intelligent choice for project developers who seek to put energy storage systems in all distant or arid places or near forests subject to periodic drought,” explains Dustin Mulvaney at the State University of San Jose in California. “Energy technologies and infrastructure have a long history of starting forest fires, and non -flammable batteries offer a way to avoid part of this risk.”
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