Lithium News

“There aren’t so many places in the world where you can enjoy absolute dark sky,” says Daniel Kordan, the photographer behind this electrifying image. But this – the Salar de Uyuni salt flat in Bolivia – is one of them. This sparkling image was captured with a long exposure away from light pollution, where the true light of the stars can shine through. The Bolivian Altiplano, Kordan says, is “the best possible place on Earth to observe stars.”

“It’s space on Earth, isn’t it?” Kordan says, but capturing this shot required a combination of photographic skills, planning, and physical stamina. The shoot took place 4-5000 kilometres above sea level, and he and his team spent 5-6 days acclimatising to the altitude before spending a further two weeks perfecting the shot.

Kordan used a Nikon D810A fitted with a 14-24 Nikkor lens and an RRS tripod to get the shot, and says that driving at night on the flooded Uyuni flats was a journey through pitch black – they had to rely on GPS tracking to reach a precise predetermined point. Stretching 10,582 square kilometres across the Andes, the Uyuni is the world’s largest salt flat. These amazing features were created when prehistoric lakes evaporated, leaving a thick crust of latticed salt carpeting the earth.

This crust is rich in lithium, a key component of batteries, and accounts for between 40 and 70 per cent of the world’s known reserves. A projected boom in electric cars means demand for lithium is expected to outstrip supply by the year 2023 – Bolivia’s president Evo Morales has promised investment in lithium extraction to the tune of $995 million (£705m) by 2019. With businesses getting going, this could one day spell the end of the Bolivian salt flats.

A lithium-producing area here in the South American Andes has been attracting the attention of numerous Chinese firms determined to secure a firm grip on the emerging lithium industry in the region.

Lithium, which is abundant in this part of the Andes, can be used in a range of devices including rechargeable batteries for electric vehicles (EVs). The rare metal is tipped to represent a “next-generation industry,” meaning that this particular corner of the world is set to have a strong influence on foreign investor activity.

Jujuy Province is located in the northwest of Argentina. A Mainichi Shimbun reporter recently visited a lithium factory there, having arrived in the province after a two-hour flight from the capital Buenos Aires followed by a four-hour drive. The factory, located some 4,000 meters above sea level, is jointly run by Australian and Japanese firms. A stunning deep-blue lake spread out near the factory, providing a breathtaking backdrop, but the thin air due to the high altitude was headache-inducing.

Jujuy Province is situated in region known as The Lithium Triangle, which straddles the national borders of Argentina, Chile and Bolivia. Development in the region, connected to the rare metal, is steaming ahead.

The lithium factory, which Japan’s Toyota Tsusho Corp. is involved in, pumps groundwater containing lithium from a salt lake the size of Osaka city, and then dries the water under the sun for about one year, across 18 artificial lakes. Once the groundwater has dried, the resulting powder is then shipped on.

“This location is ideal for lithium production as it is positioned above the clouds, meaning lots of fair weather,” says 36-year-old Kenta Iguchi, a Toyota Tsusho employee posted in the region.

The price of lithium has approximately doubled over the past 2 1/2 years. China has been buying the rare metal at a rapid pace, in an attempt to use lithium to power EVs, as it tries to dominate the global automobile market.

China’s connection with the element has become so strong that two of the world’s five major lithium developers are now Chinese, off the back of aggressive acquisition and investment strategies.

Of these two giants, Ganfeng Lithium Co. has teamed up with the Canadian company International Lithium Corp., founded by Kirill Klip. As Kilp explains, “A lithium battle has started, and China is right in the middle of it.”

Jujuy Governor Gerardo Morales says, “China leads the pack in terms of lithium development and investment. All new ventures go through the Chinese Embassy here. So in other words, all investment is determined by the Chinese government.” Morales adds, “Lots of Chinese people have come here. Too many in fact.”

There is no doubt that the relationship between China and Jujuy is deepening. Near Toyota Tsusho’s factory, a major Chinese firm is building a new factory as part of a joint venture, and the site is visited by high-ranking government officials. China has also promised cooperation in the fields of science and technology, as sought by Jujuy.

“We also want to engage in technological collaborations with Japanese and German companies. However, the only Japanese company to have come here so far is Toyota Tsusho,” Morales says.

Argentina has the world’s leading reserves of lithium, and the country’s president, Mauricio Macri, is actively encouraging foreign investment into regions that produce the rare metal. Some say that the 21st century will be the “lithium century,” following on from the previous “oil century,” and that “Argentina will be the next Saudi Arabia.”

During a visit to Argentina’s Secretary of Mining Daniel Meilan in Buenos Aires, a pile of proposals from mining companies based in countries such as China, France, Canada and Chile could be seen. “Lithium is in demand right across the world. We don’t just want to be the world’s No. 1 lithium producer, we also want to be strong in terms of rechargeable battery technology,” Meilan explains.

The difference in price between lithium powder and lithium ion batteries, is about 1 to 100-200 times per unit weight. Exporting lithium alone is not economically effective. However, by creating areas that can produce rechargeable batteries, which have high added value, a large number of jobs can be created in the country’s mountainous areas, which are lagging behind.

“The aim is to develop new rechargeable battery technology and related materials, and compete with the rest of the world,” says a 31-year-old lithium-related researcher based near to the city of Jujuy.

Also undergoing development are methods to shorten the time it takes to condense and dry lithium, using solar-powered electrolysis.

“At the moment, interest in lithium is limited to just a few companies, but the development of new technology will bring sustainable prosperity to the region,” says Ernesto Calvo, an academic.

However, conditions are also being attached to development geared toward improving the lithium industries of related countries. Bolivia, for example, which is in the Lithium Triangle, has asked countries that want to get involved to contribute toward the development of rechargeable batteries.

Looking ahead, Klip predicts, “Lithium-producing nations will ban exports of lithium, and only export rechargeable batteries. If that happens, China will monopolize lithium because of its vested interest in the product.”

If the price of lithium hits the roof due to low supply, China and only China will be able to secure cheap lithium, and proceed with development of rechargeable batteries and EV. That is the predicted scenario that is being quietly talked about by those in the know.

Delhi-headquartered renewable energy firm Hero Future Energies has completed India’s first large-scale solar and wind energy hybrid project in the state of Karnataka.

The project at Kavithal, Raichur District, which included an existing 50MW wind farm, now has a neighbouring 28.8MW solar PV site to form a hybrid system. The project’s evacuation capacity remains at 50MW since the primary aim is to address grid-integration concerns around variable power coming from renewable energy.

At the inauguration, Rahul Munjal, chairman and managing director Hero Future Energies, told PV Tech that despite well-publicised government plans to introduce a wind and solar hybrid policy, none has been released yet due to uncertainty on how to price such technology combinations. Without adequate pricing, project developers would not be able to sell their power to a distribution company (Discom) or partake in an auction where prices are the cornerstone of the bidding.

However, Hero was able to go ahead with this pioneering hybrid, because it is a group captive project, where the off-takers are a number of unnamed private companies based in the state of Karnataka. This gave Hero the freedom to deliver the pricing on its own terms, while of course delivering huge cost savings to the consumers as compared to normal grid electricity.

Munjal said that, were the government to release a suitable hybrid policy, then it would make sense to move more of Hero’s own existing sites into hybrid systems and he expects much of the rest of the industry to follow suite with this group captive model for hybrid systems.

Having been one of the first companies to try out a new length of wind turbine blade with Regen several years back, Munjal maintained that one of Hero’s philosophies is to be first to market with new technologies and the firm is constantly looking at how to innovate. It is already a heavyweight in the industry with around 1.2GW installed renewables capacity, with another 500MW under construction and 300MW now ready for building.

Referring to another Spanish company that claimed its wind projects were working better today than they had originally forecast 25 years ago, Munjal said the next push in renewables creativity and R&D will be retrofitting existing sites and working out how to extract more energy from them.

Rural south India – Approaching the site

Flying from Hyderabad in Telangana, towards Karnataka, several individual solar and wind projects – as well as the occasional thermal power plant – could be seen marking the flat plains of this part of central, southern India.

A solar project between Hyderabad and Kavithal

Overland, villagers dried red chillies in the sun, sat in the shade of the trees or played cricket in the cooler morning hours, while traffic waited for herds of goats, horses or sparring cattle to cross the roads.

Village life

Apart from green pockets of lush agriculture, formed through irrigation, the land is sparse, barren and sunburnt with temperatures regularly hovering around 40 degrees Celsius at this time of year.

Irrigated green land and the parched regions of Karnataka

Technology

At Kavithal, both the wind and solar plants were developed by Hero Future Energies and built by EPC contractor Siemens Gamesa.

The wind project uses Siemens Gamesa turbines and inverters, while the solar PV project uses Gamesa inverters and 320/325W modules from China-based manufacturer Suntech. Cables came from Hyderabad-based firm KEC International, and steel for mounting structures was sourced locally to Hero’s specifications.

Beside some of the solar arrays lay a large assembly of boxes bearing the Suntech logo. These modules were resting in storage soon to be transported within the month to Hero’s 400MW of other PV capacity being set up in the state.

Suntech modules in short-term storage

Hybrid to grid

Perhaps the most significant offering of a hybrid renewables system is its beneficial impact on the grid when compared to single technology renewables projects.

Munjal said that wind tends to rise early in the morning and in the evenings, while sunshine comes in the day, so the two sources of power generation are complementary to each other. Not only does this smooth out the overall energy production over a 24-hour period, but it also increases the plant load factor (PLF).

Indeed, individually the wind PLF is 28%, while the solar PLF is 18.7%. This brings the total PLF for the whole project to 41.8%.

Looking seasonally, wind increases ahead of the Monsoon, said Munjal, but when the rains come, the wind does start to die down.

The hybrid element is extremely pertinent to India’s renewable energy industry given the increasing penetration of renewables onto the grid. Consistent forecasts from analysts suggest that the country will face major grid integration issues in the coming years if network infrastructure is not improved at the same rate as renewables capacity additions. Indeed both India’s authorities and renewables industry have been accused of having their ‘heads in the sand’ over the grid integration issue in the past.

Moreover, the Green Energy Corridors, touted to help evacuate power from states rich in renewable energy resources (high irradiation and strong, consistent winds) to states with high power demand, have faced delays and by some reports have also faced a serious lack of funding.

Pricing

To calculate the hybrid pricing, Munjal said that using highly advanced, modern technologies and software, one can take an assumption of how much solar and wind will be generated separately, before taking a weighted average of the generation and price.

He said: “The beauty is the price for both gets lowered since the infrastructure is common. You are using the same evacuation, you are using the same substation etc.”

Indeed, due to the existing wind site, almost all the necessary infrastructure for the solar plant was already available, and the project only required a few enhancements, such as updating the inverter technologies. Some extra land had to be purchased for the solar system, which is spread across 65 hectares, but Hero was already familiar with the location, the landscape and the local authorities, which made the process easier than developing a standard PV project from scratch.

Land headache relief

Typical landscape in Karnataka

Karnataka itself is also particularly affable to renewable energy, because there is plenty of land, with strong winds and irradiation. Munjal said it will become the next big state for wind capacity after Tamil Nadu, and it is already a leading state for solar.

However, describing the process of delivering transmission to the project, he said: “When you are building that 20 kilometre [transmission line] the number of people that you have to encounter… I’ve always maintained the toughest thing about doing renewables in India is land.”

Indian land records are not digitised so one has to deal with both a private surveyor and a government surveyor and plots of land that are suitable for a project can be owned by hundreds of different people.

“Land is only 5-10% of our cost, but 95% of problems lies with land,” said Munjal.

Thus, even though Hero had to purchase some extra land for the project, the hybrid element actually reduced the land requirement, particularly with transmission and this for Munjal is “going to be the biggest benefit” of hybrids.

Technicians on site

Atul Raaizada, senior VP projects and O&M, large wind and solar farms, Hero Future Energies, said his team studied the wind project for three months before coming up with the hybrid concept, learning how to minimise energy wastage when combining both wind and solar at the right levels. Once the combination is understood, execution is easy, he said.

He also highlighted that this particular project location, which has consistently strong irradiation, is both on hilly land, which is conducive to wind, and on barren land, therefore not impacting agricultural production. This is “the best of everything”, he said.

The specific generation capacities were chosen to find the most suitable balance and minimise the clipping (curtailment) of solar and wind, should their generation go above the 50MW evacuation limit, said Raaizada. Having to find that right balance stemmed from being unable to regulate wind generation due to the huge mechanical components in use.

A solo wind turbine

Module performance

An unsung benefit of hybrid systems is that by choosing a location with naturally high wind resources, the temperature of the solar modules is also reduced by the breeze, thus increasing the PV generation, said Raaizada.

Year-round lower temperatures on the solar panels from the wind also reduces the rate of degradation in the modules.

Mounting the modules had to account for hilly terrain

Hybrid cost savings

Not only does the hybrid system share the transmission infrastructure, but the operations are also shared by the same teams, thereby reducing costs even further.

However, operations and Maintenance (O&M) teams are different since the solar system requires manual, water-based cleaning twice a month, in this extremely dusty region. Munjal said barren land is naturally dusty, but there are two types of dust that impact solar. Dry dust, as in the arid, desert state of Rajasthan, can be easily wiped off or blown off by the wind, but dust in humid conditions tends to stick the panels, which can impact irradiation on the panels and cause soiling in the long-term.

Energy storage lurking

The third hybrid of energy storage is a couple of years away from entering the mainstream in India

In its draft solar wind hybrid policy, Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) had targeted 10GW by 2022. Following this, the state of Andhra Pradesh released a draft document outlining its plans for 3GW of wind and solar hybrid projects by 2019/20. But while policy action stuttered since these annoucments, the next stage after wind and solar hybrids, which introduces a third pillar in the form of energy storage, seems to be progressing with its own momentum.

Andhra Pradesh authorities are already planning to tender a project involving 120MW of solar, 40MW of wind and 20-40MWh of storage this year. Meanwhile, Kerala’s Agency for Non-Conventional Energy and Rural Technology (ANERT), is working on an experimental, technology demo to include 3MW of solar, 4MW of wind, and battery storage.

Indian power minister R.K. Singh also recently chaired a meeting with battery-based energy storage manufacturers calling on them to set up manufacturing units in India. His urgency stemmed not only from the government’s push on electric vehicles (EVs) and its expected surge in the coming years, but also because Singh said future tenders will cover hybrid solar and wind projects to be coupled with energy storage.

Munjal said he believes that large-scale coupling with energy storage will proliferate in the next two to three years. While price remains a problem, Hero is already using storage to benefit its own plants but at a very small scale – carryng out studies with small batteries.

Raaizada said Hero is looking at future smoothing of the grid using storage and also releasing stored energy at peak times on the grid.

More room for error

Inside a wind turbine

Karnataka was among the first states to take on new forecasting rules, following the example of Tamil Nadu, so it requires plant operators to provide more frequent and accurate projections of energy production or face penalties.

Rather than making this forecasting more challenging, the combination of overlapping of wind and solar generation has actually increased the room for error, thus increasing the overall performance of the project’s scheduling and forecasting.

Munjal said that forecasting software is also becoming more and more reliable, but while strict rules on forecasting are necessary for the industry, how to penalise for non-compliance is up for debate.

“It has to be a three, four year programme,” He said. “Rome wasn’t built in a day – you cant expect us to be perfect at it from day one. So some of the states which are more stringent than they should be. While some states understand it and they are giving us a little bit of a breather and saying as long as we see a positive correlation, we give you a couple of years to stabilise your systems.”

The problem is that developers rely on several sets of data: from NASA, satellite data, and third-party software. Nonetheless, the hybrid project benefits actually negate the threat of unreliable data and inaccurate readings.

India’s Hybrid future

Tendering is key, but pricing is hard

Looking at how India can drive wind solar hybrids into the mainstream, Munjal said: “We should start a narrative where we should ask the government as the industry to come up with wind-solar hybrid tenders.”

Existing Solar Park projects, where the government has been monitoring progress closely will be the most suitable locations to add wind, while fresh tenders for new wind and solar together will be easier to bid out and get a price for both sources together from scratch.

Vinay Rustagi, managing director of consultancy firm Bridge to India, told PV Tech: “There are two main benefits of wind solar hybrids. The first one is, obviously, there is better and more efficient use of the land and transmission infrastructure, so that reduces the capital cost by something like 5-7% and that is parked through and results in overall lower tariff. So I think the Discoms and the power purchaser should actually be keen on hybrid projects like this.

“The hybrid power project also makes the power output a little bit more reliable than a standalone solar or standalone wind project so that again from a Discom’s point of view or from a transmission grid stability point of view should be actually better for the entire system.”

The benefits of hybrid renewables have been made clear and, if Munjal is correct, Hero Future Energies’ pioneering mark on the industry should see plenty more players following suite, but only with private offtakers until a suitable government policy is released.

A technique that uses heat to enable lithium-metal self-healing to eliminate dangerous dendrite build-up in battery anodes, has been developed by researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

In a lithium-ion battery, the cathode is a lithium metal oxide while the anode is graphite. Researchers are currently looking for ways to replace graphite with lithium metal as the anode to boost the battery’s energy density.

Since the packing density of lithium atoms is the highest in its metallic form, batteries that use metallic lithium anodes can pack more energy per weight or volume than graphite-based anodes, Rensselaer explains. However, lithium metal anodes are plagued by ‘dendrite’ build-up that takes place over repeated cycles of charging and discharging.

Dendrites are protrusions that emanate out of the lithium metal surface and often, grow long enough to create a short circuit between the electrodes, leading to a fire hazard.

Rensselaer says it has discovered a way to use internal battery heat to diffuse the dendrites into a smooth layer. “We have found that lithium metal dendrites can be healed in situ by the ‘self-heating’ of the dendritic particles,” says Professor Nikhil Koratkar of Rensselaer.

So far, the lithium dendrite challenge has been tackled by using carbon, typically graphite, anodes. In this approach, Rensselaer explains that lithium ions diffuse into and are stored within the carbon matrix, isolating each lithium atom and preventing dendrite build-up. Usually, one lithium atom is stored for every 6 carbon atoms, with the excess carbon material serving little more than deadweight.

“Lithium-ion batteries with carbon-based anodes are the best available option, but they can no longer keep up with the storage-capacity demand,” Prof. Koratkar contends. “For any significant new improvements, we must look elsewhere. The best option would be a lithium metal system.”

By taking advantage of the battery’s internal resistive heating to eliminate the dendrite build-up, Rensselaer believes it has a solution.

Resistive heating (also known as Joule heating) is a process in which a metallic material resists current flow and, as a result, produces heat. This self-heating occurs through the charging and discharging process.

In their work, the team ramped up the self-heating effect by increasing the current density (charge-discharge rate) of the battery. According to Rensselaer, the process triggered extensive surface diffusion of lithium, spreading the dendrites into an even layer.

The researchers say they first demonstrated this smoothening of the dendrites in a lithium-lithium symmetrical cell, before showing the process with the same results in a proof-of-concept demonstration using a lithium-sulfur battery.

Dendrite healing would be carried out by battery management system software, Rensselaer explains, which would provide doses of self-healing treatment by running a few cycles at a high rate of charge and discharge when an electronic device is not in use.

“A limited amount of cycles at high current density would occur to heal the dendrites, and then normal operations can be resumed,” Prof. Koratkar says. “Self-healing would occur as a maintenance strategy, long before the dendrites become a safety hazard.”

“High-density energy storage remains a critical hurdle between renewable-energy harvesting and its widespread use in everything from electrical vehicles to solar powered homes,” adds Dean of Engineering Shekhar Garde. “Results from Prof. Koratkar’s lab show how the fundamental understanding of materials at the nanoscale can be employed to not only increase energy density of batteries, but also increase their life and make them safer.”

Rocketing demand and prices for lithium, coupled with China’s stranglehold on supply, are reviving interest in mining Europe’s reserves of the coveted metal some call white petroleum.

Prices for lithium used in the batteries that power anything from mobile phones to Teslas more than doubled to $21,000 a ton in the past two years. Analysts expect the lithium-ion battery market to surpass $90 billion by 2025 as electric vehicles become commonplace and growing use of wind and sun power forces utilities to invest in large electricity storage facilities.

But while European businesses use 25% of the world’s lithium, a group of Chinese companies has secured a potential stranglehold on the Australian and South American mines that produce almost all the world’s battery-grade metal. That has sent a small group of pioneers on a race to reopen European mines where the conditions that gave rise to such lowly metals as tin have left lithium-rich rocks and hot brines.

The race for European lithium echoes similar efforts in Japan to track down metals for use in batteries amid concern about China’s hegemony over other minerals used in batteries and electric vehicles.

For now, the best candidates for lithium are in Germany and the Czech Republic where companies have successfully mined and produced battery-grade lithium and hope to sell it to the numerous car manufacturing plants dotted around central Europe. And in the U.K., Portugal and Sweden and Britain’s Cornwall region, companies are drilling bore holes and building 3-D maps of underground lithium deposits.

One German firm, Deutsche Lithium GmbH, was recently granted a 30-year mining license and has already scooped out 100 tons of lithium-yielding rock as it fine-tunes its extraction processes. The company said it could eventually mine 15,000 tons a year.

Meanwhile, Australian mining company European Metals Ltd. has extracted battery-grade lithium from its mine in the Czech Republic and is finalizing a $400 million pitch to investors to scale up production.

Geologists at Cornish Lithium Ltd., a startup scouring for lithium in the U.K.’s historic tin-mining region of Cornwall, is using satellite images to search for rock formations and vegetation patterns typical of lithium-rich grounds — and even poring over the yellowing diaries of long-dead tin miners for clues as to where lithium-rich underground springs may be hidden.

“It’s a fascinating moment in the history of mining,” said Richard Shaw, geologist at the British Geological Survey.

Lithium’s light weight makes it perfect for use in batteries, which generate more electricity per unit of weight than any other conceivable chemistry, according to researchers. Invented by Exxon in the 1970s and made cheaper and safer since, lithium-ion batteries are now ubiquitous.

For now, Chinese companies dominate global lithium supply. Last year, auto maker Great Wall Motor bought a $28 million stake in Pilbara Mineral, an Australian lithium mine and signed a contract for a delivery of 150,000 tons of lithium-yielding spodumene from the company’s mine in Western Australia.

China’s Ganfeng Lithium holds 20% of an Argentine project. Chinese firm Tianqi Lithium’s has attracted regulator attention in Chile due to its $4 billion bid to buy a stake in SQM, the world’s second biggest lithium producer. Combined, the companies would control 70% of the world lithium market.

But with Europe’s car makers now set on mass-producing electric vehicles, the need for the continent to secure its own lithium reserves is gaining urgency.

“We hope to sell into the upswing in European electric car manufacturing that’ll take place in the mid-2020s,” said Keith Coughlan, director of European Metals Ltd., an Australian-Czech firm looking for lithium on the Czech side of the border.

Lithium is easy to find. But only the richer seams or brines will yield enough of the metal to make mining it profitable. If enough dense deposits can be found, Europe could produce lithium for around $4,000 per metric ton, according to Martin Bertau, professor of mining and geology at the University of Freiberg. That is in line with the cost of Australian production and well below last year’s peak price of $21,000.

Speculators probing the ground on either side of the German-Czech border think they can profitably produce lithium from zinnwaldite, a mineral often found encased in granite-like rocks.

“Using historic mines,” said Mr. Coughlan, the Australian speculator said, “saves a huge amount of time and money compared to digging a new mine.”

Mr. Coughlan said his company would also mine tin at the site, raising the productivity of the enterprise and offering a hedge if lithium prices fall.

Gerard Reid, a founding partner at Alexa Capital, a London corporate-finance firm specializing in energy technology and infrastructure, said the small outfits now scouring the continent would struggle to gain critical mass without the help of deep-pocketed mining giants like Rio Tinto or Glencore.

But Armin Müller, founder of Deutsche Lithium, thinks German auto makers, late to the electric-car revolution, might want a local source of lithium if tweaks to Germany’s capricious energy policies mean car makers must account for the carbon footprint of sourcing raw materials.

Mr. Müller’s firm plans to keep the whole battery-grade lithium production process in Saxony, East Germany, within driving distance of Volkswagen’s sprawling Wolfsburg car plant in the western state of Lower Saxony.

Deutsche Lithium would mine and crush zinnwaldite in Altenberg before transporting lithium fragments for chemical purification in nearby Dresden. The processes would be governed by stringent German and European laws.

Thomas Kerstin, Altenberg’s mayor, said the town was supportive of reopening the mine shafts closed after German reunification in the 1990s — an enticing prospect for the economically struggling region.

“It feels like the town could get its soul back,” Mr. Kerstin said.