Researchers from the College of Architecture and Planning at Imam Abdulrahman Bin Faisal University have presented a proposal for the leadership of Saudi Arabia to drop lead-acid batteries in favor of lithium-ion ones. Their proposal is outlined in a scientific paper that has been published in the journal Energies.
Saudi Arabia has been actively developing its renewable energy industry, especially in the residential sector, where the focus is placed on the use of solar panels. This is a key area in the implementation of the national strategy to reduce the country’s dependence on oil by 50% by the year 2030 through the transition to renewable energy. However, solar panels alone are not enough: to provide a stable power supply day and night, reliable energy storage systems are needed.
Lead-acid batteries are currently the dominant type of batteries used across Saudi Arabia, although research has shown a number of disadvantages: they are heavy, short-lived, charge slowly, do not tolerate heat well and lose efficiency when deeply discharged. Their capacity averages about 2.4 kWh, with a service life of no more than 550 cycles.
Modern lithium-ion batteries are much more efficient: they are lighter, take up less space, charge faster, provide up to 5.12 kWh of capacity and can last up to 8,000 cycles under similar conditions. They can also be combined into a single system with a total capacity of more than 50 kWh, which is especially important to households that are completely dependent on solar.
Initially, the transition to these batteries may require an increase in imports from the United States, where they are produced on a large scale. However, there is potential for localized production or development of domestic technologies. The researchers stress that this approach is fully consistent with Saudi Vision 2030, a national strategy that involves not only developing power generation facilities, but also creating state-of-the-art domestic energy storage systems.
