[freebeard]

Maybe I spoke too soon?

www.canarymedia.com: This NASA tech might just spur a major grid battery breakthrough

EnerVenue’s still got plenty to prove, but it already has a pipeline of orders and more than $100M in funding. A factory in Kentucky is on the way.
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Nickel hydrogen can charge and discharge quickly or slowly, multiple times a day, at any temperature, he added. The physical cause of thermal runaway, which is the culprit behind lithium-ion fires, simply doesn’t exist in the tank structure of nickel-hydrogen batteries; that means EnerVenue doesn’t need any fire-suppression or HVAC equipment, which adds cost and eats up energy.
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EnerVenue warranties 20,000 cycles over 20 years with effectively no restrictions on how to operate. But the product is designed to last 30,000 cycles, Heinemann said; some of the nickel-hydrogen units up in space ran for 100,000 cycles.

“Our technology is much more forgiving,” Heinemann said. ​“It changes the mindset from ​‘A battery is a consumable that has to be babied’ to ​‘It lasts as long as the solar panels or wind turbines it’s paired with, maybe longer.’”
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As for round-trip efficiency — how much of the power that goes in is able to be withdrawn and used — EnerVenue says it hits 85% to 90%. That’s comparable to lithium ion, and better than some batteries. That’s a metric where non-lithium technologies often suffer.
[snip]
“If you’re doing a twist on an old technology, it won’t take you decades — it will take you years,” said Chamberlain.

That’s an area where EnerVenue believes it has leverage over other battery challengers.

“We’re drafting off of three decades of real use,” Heinemann said, referring to the NASA deployments.