World first energy storage unit demonstrates zero degradation over 5 years

China's CATL – the world's largest EV battery producer – has launched TENER, which is described as the "world's first mass-producible energy storage system with zero degradation in the first five years of use."

As anyone who uses a smartphone or drives an electric vehicle will know, the lithium-based batteries at the heart of such technologies won't always operate like new, they will lose some energy capacity over time – meaning more time plugged in.

Though improvements in energy density and charging technologies should help eke more time away from the charger, zero degradation is the ultimate goal. And that's what China's CATL – the world's largest EV battery maker, ahead of LG, BYD, Samsung and Panasonic – is promising its TENER (or Tianheng, depending where you are in the world) development can achieve, for the first five years of use anyway.

TENER is a bit like Tesla's Megapack, in that it's a big battery pack housed within a metal box that's designed to store energy from intermittent renewables such as solar and wind. CATL has managed to house 6.25 MWh of L-series long-life Lithium Iron Phosphate batteries within a 20-ft-equivalent container, for an energy density of 430 Wh/L (for context, a Megapack's unit capacity is 3.9 MWh). This is reported to translate into a 30% energy density increase per unit compared to previous iterations, which should mean a smaller footprint for new multi-unit installs or more juice for existing power stations.

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