[Graeme]

SolarCity Sees Energy Storage ‘Viable’ Within 10 Years, CEO Says

SolarCity Corp. (SCTY), the solar power provider led by billionaire Elon Musk, will complete about 100 energy storage systems for customers this year and plans to expand as costs decline, according to its chief executive officer.

“It’ll be a viable product in the next ten years,” SolarCity CEO Lyndon Rive said today in an interview in San Francisco. “We don’t know yet how big the next phase is going to be, but this is a long term investment, full stop,” he said. “We will solve the storage issue.”

The San Mateo, California-based company is installing 8 kilowatt-hour battery packs provided by Tesla Motors Inc. (TSLA) and combining them with energy management systems that allow for remote monitoring. Storage will be crucial to balance the U.S. electric grid as solar expands from 1 percent of total generation capacity today, according to Rive.

“The criticism that solar gets is that it’s intermittent, that you can’t depend on it, but at 1 percent it still doesn’t matter,” Rive said. “Once you get to 20 percent, it starts to matter,” he said.

Rooftop solar systems that SolarCity provides don’t have the same risk of dropping off in large amounts from the grid, though that is an issue with larger utility-scale systems, according to Rive.

“The fear of intermittency actually comes from large central solar,” he said. “We can forecast very accurately what power you’re going to produce based on the weather conditions that we see,” he said.

SolarCity has 395 energy storage “pilots” under contract, according to a filing March 27.

bloomberg

The Velkess Flywheel: A more flexible energy storage technology

A new Kickstarter project called Velkess (Very Large Kinetic Energy Storage System) has recently gotten underway to bring an inexpensive flywheel to market. The project is headed by Bill Gray, who has taken a unique approach to flywheel design—a flexible rotor made of "E-glass," a common fiberglass used in everything from sporting goods to shower doors. Rather than use advanced carbon-fiber composites manufactured to exact tolerances, Gray's soft rotor flexes in response to destabilizing forces. It is thereby able to adjust to speed transitions that confound other designs.


Gray expects the final units to be comparable in price to lead acid batteries while having a much improved lifetime. Also, the construction materials will be environmentally friendly. The rotor will operate in a vacuum and it is expected that only about 2 percent of its stored power will be lost to friction each day. These numbers make the new flywheel design look like it could be a viable alternative not just to batteries but also to other green schemes like compressed air storage, or pumping water uphill. If the Velkess project can get backing on a scale similar to what these technologies have attracted, flywheels may have finally come of age.

phys.org

[Graeme]

Germany on the Verge of a Subsidy for Energy Storage

Could a German subsidy on energy storage replicate the German solar miracle for batteries instead?

We should find out in a few weeks.

The launch and terms of a long-threatened energy storage subsidy are due to be introduced on May 1, according to a spokesperson for bank KfW which is involved in refinancing the loans, as reported in PV Magazine. The loans come from kfW and the 30 percent subsidy on the battery system is financed by Germany's Federal Environment Ministry with a reported grant fund of $65 million. The funding commitment from the Federal Environment Ministry has not been finalized.

The energy storage system is meant to be used in tandem with distributed solar installations with storage systems developed in Germany; the funds come with a maximum size requirement of 30 kilowatts. The batteries must have a warranty of at least seven years to gain the subsidy. Another requirement is that the PV installation sends 60 percent of its capacity to the grid over the lifetime of the plant. The battery subsidies will apply retroactively when connected to solar systems installed in 2013, according to reports in PV Magazine.

greentechmedia

Microorganisms may hold key to renewable electricity storage

Microorganisms belonging to the oldest living species on earth could hold the key to utility-scale electricity storage, according to Austrian company Krajete GmbH.

After four years of research and four patent applications, the cleantech start-up claims to have perfected the four billion year old metabolic process of ‘archaea’ to enable the direct conversion of CO2 and water into methane. This ‘power-to-gas’ process allows for the industrial storage of electricity.

The intermittent nature of renewable generation means that often excess electricity is produced when demand is low. Using a power-to-gas process would see any excess electricity generation used for the electrolytic generation of hydrogen. The hydrogen could then be combined with CO2 in the company’s bioreactor to create high-grade methane.

solarpowerportal

[Graeme]

Graphene Energy Storage

Positive inroads have been made for energy storage in batteries as well. Rice University has created a cathode-like ribbon that is thinner than a sheet of paper. The ribbon is “ten nanometers thick, up to 600 nanometers wide and tens of micrometers in length,” as reported by Energy Storage Publishing. The ribbons were built into prototype cells, which charged and discharged in a matter of 20 seconds—retaining more than 90 percent capacity well beyond 1,000 cycles.

The ribbons work by using a combination of vanadium oxide (VO2) and graphene. Current lithium-ion batteries use vanadium pentoxide as a conductor.

Oxides have been known for their slow charge and discharge rate, but graphene will work to enhance the ribbon’s conduciveness, forming a proper outlet for electrons while serving as a channel for the ions.

The materials used for making these ribbons are not expensive, which is good news for manufacturers, and researchers already believe the ribbons can be manufactured on a mass scale.

There are some kinks to work out, such as maintaining synthesis between VO2 and the graphene, according to Shubin Yang, a graduate student and scientist. But according to Yang, there are ways to remedy this.

From Energy Storage Publishing:

“This required the suspension of graphene oxide nanosheets with powdered vanadium pentoxide in water that is heated in an autoclave for hours. The vanadium pentoxide reduces to VO2, which crystallises into ribbons and the graphene oxide reduces to graphene.”

Graphene will store 10 times the power and allow batteries to charge 10 times faster.

Graphene may be in the R&D phase, but it has already proven to be a valuable resource for energy storage of all types.

energyandcapital

[Graeme]

World’s largest battery storage system to be installed in Japan

Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) has announced plans to install the world’s largest battery at an electrical substation in the prefecture of Hokkaido, which has a high number of solar installations.

According to Kyodo News Service the battery is expected to have a storage capacity of around 60MWh, and to be set up by March 2015.

The project is expected to use up a large proportion of a ¥29.6 billion (US$299.5 million) fund allocated to battery projects by the Japanese government in its 2012 budget.

METI also envisages its storage battery market to account for about half of the global market share of which one third will be made up of large-scale storage batteries by 2020.

Figures released in December last year by METI showed Hokkaido, Japan’s second largest island, as having the highest installed capacity compared to the country’s other 47 prefectures, due to the availability and inexpensive cost of land in the region.

pv-tech

[Graeme]

Zinc-Iron Redox Flow Batteries — The Next Big Thing In Energy Storage?

As noted at the top, Zinc Air Inc. (ZAI) is just about 6 months out from its technology being used in its first commercial project. As such, the company is coming out from under the radar more.

The company has been around for about four years in total, mostly working on nitty gritty of its zinc-iron redox flow battery technology. This is following about eight years of DOE-funded research. “We have been spending a great deal of that time developing the technology,” Hayes said, but he added that they have also been working on business outreach for the last two or three.

Rather than simply trying to sell the idea to investors, however, they have been connecting with leading utilities (including the largest renewable energy utility in the US) and other potential customers. ZAI has a “2013 pipeline of $16 million in sales, with follow-on projects of $115 million,” a company document that was sent over noted. And the company currently has no debt.

Basically, the company is trying to fill some niche needs at the moment, while proving commercial viability and preparing itself for greater market expansion. The first, “easy” markets to penetrate are behind-the-meter microgrid generation, Wilkins notes. But, in general, the aim is for use as a conventional grid storage technology (projects in the tens of megawatts). To date, Wilkins says, “we have had due diligence performed on us by the largest customers.”

cleantechnica

[Graeme]

Intersolar North America Spotlights Energy Storage Innovations

Intersolar North America, the most attended industry exhibition and conference in North America for solar professionals to exchange information and develop business opportunities in the U.S. solar market, will unveil a special exhibition segment dedicated to energy storage at this year's event. The exhibit will address the latest developments in energy storage technology and policy, and tap industry experts' predictions for the strongest growth markets.
The U.S. solar market is projected to add approximately 3.9 GW of new solar capacity in 2013, according to EuPD Research, and commercialized energy storage solutions will play a pivotal role in ensuring the market's continued growth. As solar power becomes more and more cost competitive, investors, utilities and power producers are looking to incorporate energy storage into plant design. In the U.S. alone, the grid storage market could reach 4 GW by 2016. Recently, the California Public Utilities Commission set a procurement target of 50 MW of storage by 2021 for Southern California Edison, one of the state's largest utilities, and is working to set procurement targets across the state as part of the goals of California Assembly Bill 2514.

Additionally, a public-private initiative launched in the United States in March will encourage the development of cheaper, more powerful batteries for energy storage systems and electric vehicles. The Joint Center for Energy Storage Research (JCESR) was started by the Department of Energy and includes major U.S. research universities. It will receive an award of up to $120 million to develop new technologies, providing further proof that the energy storage market in the United States is expanding rapidly and attracting the attention of investors, government research centers and agencies, and utilities, among others.

Energy Storage Centerpiece of Exhibition and Conference

Energy storage is a key part of the complete system of solar technologies, and last year Intersolar North America featured special presentations on the topic. Based on strong demand and positive feedback from 2012 attendees, Intersolar North America expanded its offerings on the topic, and created the Energy Storage special exhibit to highlight the importance of energy storage to the solar market in the United States and beyond. Located on Level 2 in the Moscone West Hall, the segment is specifically reserved for exhibitors showcasing the storage solutions that are attracting the interest of investors, utilities and independent power producers.

Special presentations on energy storage will be held on the PV ENERGY WORLD stage that will address disruptive technologies in the market and business strategies for greater market penetration. The Fraunhofer Institute, Intersolar's scientific partner, is a primary organizer of these sessions. Additionally, one track at the Intersolar Conference in the InterContinental Hotel will be dedicated to energy storage. Featuring four sessions on Monday, July 8, the energy storage track will cover the latest information on storage applications, technologies, market overviews and policy, and will conclude with an expert panel. More information is available online.

"The increased number of PV systems being integrated into electrical grids requires storage solutions on different time scales to secure the feeding-in of electricity, and to preserve the quality and reliability of the power supply. Furthermore the integration of storage transforms fluctuating power generators like PV into controllable power systems. Fortunately, recent developments, especially in battery technologies, coupled with favorable policies and support schemes, are accelerating widespread adoption," said Dr. Matthias Vetter of the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE. "Energy storage plays a crucial role in bringing more renewable energy systems online. Facilitating high-quality exchanges between business leaders and innovators is key to ensuring these solutions are adopted worldwide."

To further the discussion on energy storage, Intersolar launched a web portal on April 23 for the solar industry to exchange ideas on the topic of storage and grid integration of renewables, as well as industry best practices. The portal features commentary and blog posts from industry experts involved in research and development and active in relevant trade associations. Visit www.solarenergystorage.org for more information. More information, including details on how to be a part of the Energy Storage exhibit, is available online.

Intersolar North American Launches eMobility Special Exhibit

As part of its commitment to highlight new solar industry trends, Intersolar will showcase eMobility at this year's conference, and highlight technologies that can seamlessly integrate solar systems with energy storage solutions. Companies will show the latest in electric vehicles, charging technology and solar-powered carports on Level 3 of Moscone West (Booth #9635). eMobility couples two rapidly developing market sectors—electric vehicles and energy storage—and can play a role in stabilizing the grid as more renewable energy comes online. The exhibit will feature international companies highlighting the latest in eMobility technologies and market strategies. For more information about the program and exhibiting, please visit www.intersolar.us.

prnewswire

[Graeme]

New battery design could help solar and wind power the grid

Researchers from the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and Stanford University have designed a low-cost, long-life battery that could enable solar and wind energy to become major suppliers to the electrical grid.

"For solar and wind power to be used in a significant way, we need a battery made of economical materials that are easy to scale and still efficient," said Yi Cui, a Stanford associate professor of materials science and engineering and a member of the Stanford Institute for Materials and Energy Sciences, a SLAC/Stanford joint institute.


The new Stanford/SLAC battery design uses only one stream of molecules and does not need a membrane at all. Its molecules mostly consist of the relatively inexpensive elements lithium and sulfur, which interact with a piece of lithium metal coated with a barrier that permits electrons to pass without degrading the metal. When discharging, the molecules, called lithium polysulfides, absorb lithium ions; when charging, they lose them back into the liquid. The entire molecular stream is dissolved in an organic solvent, which doesn't have the corrosion issues of water-based flow batteries.

"In initial lab tests, the new battery also retained excellent energy-storage performance through more than 2,000 charges and discharges, equivalent to more than 5.5 years of daily cycles," Cui said.

To demonstrate their concept, the researchers created a miniature system using simple glassware. Adding a lithium polysulfide solution to the flask immediately produces electricity that lights an LED.

A utility version of the new battery would be scaled up to store many megawatt-hours of energy.

rdmag

[Graeme]

MIT researchers propose subsea version of pumped hydro for renewable energy storage

Researchers at MIT are proposing using a variation on pumped hydroelectric systems for storage of electricity produced by offshore wind farms. The key to this Ocean Renewable Energy Storage (ORES) system is the placement of 30-meter-diameter hollow concrete spheres on the seafloor under the wind turbines. These structures would serve both as anchors to moor the floating turbines and as a means of storing the energy they produce.

Geologic pumped hydroelectric storage works by pumping water to a reservoir behind a dam when electricity demand is low. When demand is high, the water is released through turbines that generate electricity. (Earlier post.)

In the MIT scheme, whenever the wind turbines produce more power than is needed, that power would be diverted to drive a pump attached to the underwater structure, pumping seawater from the hollow sphere. Later, when power is needed, water would be allowed to flow back into the sphere through a turbine attached to a generator, and the resulting electricity sent back to shore.

One such 25-meter sphere in 400-meter-deep water could store up to 6 megawatt-hours of power, the MIT researchers have calculated; that means that 1,000 such spheres could supply as much power as a nuclear plant for several hours.

The 1,000 wind turbines that the spheres could anchor could, on average, replace a conventional on-shore coal or nuclear plant. This energy source could be made available within minutes, and then taken offline just as quickly.

The system would be grid-connected, so the spheres could also be used to store energy from other sources, including solar arrays on shore, or from base-load power plants, which operate most efficiently at steady levels. This could potentially reduce reliance on peak-power plants, which typically operate less efficiently.

The concept is detailed in a paper published in Proceedings of the IEEE and co-authored by Alexander Slocum, the Pappalardo Professor of Mechanical Engineering at MIT; Brian Hodder, a researcher at the MIT Energy Initiative; and three MIT alumni and a former high school student who worked on the project.

greencarcongress

[Graeme]

Solar storage market to be worth $19bn by 2017

Global installations of solar storage systems are forecast to grow by more than 100% a year in the next five years, with a market worth $19 billion (£16bn).
Total installed capacity could reach almost 7GW in 2017, with Germany expected to account for more than two thirds (70%) of the worldwide total this year once it launches an incentive scheme for photovoltaic (PV) storage.

Analysts at IHS predict the subsidy will promote rapid growth in the German residential sector and lead to almost 2GWh of storage capacity being installed every year until 2017.

Sam Wilkinson, PV analyst at IHS said pricey home electricity rates now “significantly exceed” home feed-in tariff rates which is driving “strong interest” in home PV systems.

Energy storage will begin to take off in the UK from around 2014, as prices for the technology start to fall, he added: “We do expect that other countries will follow Germany’s example and adopt similar subsidy schemes to promote the use of PV energy storage – particularly where there is a case for promoting self-consumption and grid stability.”

energylivenews

[Graeme]

Solar PV Energy Storage Market To Skyrocket

Energy storage may be the next big thing in cleantech, and in the energy sector as a whole. We have never had much energy storage in place across the world. Instead, we have built a tremendous amount of backup capacity. With the variability of wind and solar, their increasingly low costs, and the desire to have a renewably powered world, the drive for cost-effective storage has picked up in pace. And many new solutions seem to be on the horizon. Furthermore, as the market expands, economies of scale allow the manufacturing costs to drop considerably.

A new report from IMS Research, which is part of IHS Inc, finds that the market will grow from under $200 million in 2012 to $19 billion by 2017. That’s quite explosive growth.

The report, “The Role of Energy Storage in the PV Industry,” also finds that Germany will lead that growth. (Who’s surprised?)

“Following the introduction of an energy storage subsidy in Germany, global installations of PV storage systems are forecast to grow by more than 100 percent a year on average over the next five years, to reach almost 7 gigawatts (GW) in 2017 and worth $19 billion,” IMS Research writes. “Germany will account for nearly 70 percent of storage installed in residential PV systems worldwide in 2013.”

cleantechnica

[Graeme]

Market might be warming to fuel cells

For decades, people have talked about the potential of fuel cells -- clean, highly efficient, quiet, relatively compact producers of energy.
Now there is increasing evidence of that potential. Fuel cells are working, and being built throughout the state and the country.

"It's not the future,'' said Scott Samuelsen, director of the National Fuel Cell Research Center at the University of California at Irvine. "It's already begun. It's something we can actually observe in real time.''

Fuel cell prices "have started to go down,'' said Joel Reinbold, director of the energy initiative at the Connecticut Center for Advanced Technology. "They're safe and reliable. There's a premium today on energy efficiency and clean sources of energy. Fuel cells are a logical choice.''


But over the past three to five years, Samuelsen said, the industry has begun to reach a sort of tipping point, as people got used to the softly humming boxes.
The fuel cell business is accelerating, Satyapal said, to the extent that in 2011, there were 20,000 new fuel cell installations in the United States, including stationary systems and fuel cells used to power vehicles.

That was a 35 percent increase over 2010, she said. The national figures for 2012 should show a similar rate of growth, Satyapal said.

In Connecticut, there are at least 29 sites with fuel cells.

Goddard of FuelCell Energy said the energy from his company's fuel cells costs about 13 cents to 15 cents a kilowatt, depending on the price of natural gas used as a fuel at the plant. That's competitive in Connecticut, where energy costs are high.

"In New York or California, we may need to get the price down to 12 cents or 14 cents a kilowatt to be competitive,'' he said. "We're really close.''

greenwichtime

[Graeme]

Eos Energy Storage — Next Big Thing In Energy Storage?

We’re creating a resource page on some of the most standout energy storage options moving towards commercialization. If even one of these technologies makes it to market with the specs claimed, it could change the energy game. Let’s hope that happens.

The first article in this series was about the zinc-iron redox flow batteries Zinc Air Inc. has been developing under the radar up in Montana. In this post, I’ll delve into the claims Eos Energy Storage is making about its own zinc-based batteries, which are initially being targeted for grid storage application.

The battery Eos has been developing is a zinc-air battery, which would probably draw some flags for you if you keep up with this sector of cleantech in a bit of depth. Zinc-air batteries have a number of shortfalls that make them less than ideal for grid storage (i.e. cycle life and efficiency issues). However, in a presentation about Eos that I watched last year (sorry, the video doesn’t seem to be online any longer), the claim was that the company’s zinc-air batteries were nothing like conventional zinc-air batteries — that they had built the batteries from the ground up in a completely different way than was previously done. As far as I know, the details of that are under wraps at the moment, but if you have specific questions, I’m pretty positive we could get folks from Eos to answer those in the comments below.

As you can see in the image below (click here to see a larger version), the claimed cost is $1,000/kW or $160/kWh, the cycle life is 10,000 full cycles (30 year life), and the storage system has a 75% round-trip efficiency. And, as such, the LCOE is very competitive.

cleantechnica

[Graeme]

Methanation of CO2: Storage of Renewable Energy in a Gas Distribution System

The ideal energy system of the future would be able to provide a constant supply of electricity based on renewable resources, without usage restrictions for the consumer. Unfortunately, many renewable energy sources, such as wind and solar, can only provide energy in an intermittent manner. To adjust the supply to the demand, the energy must be stored somehow.

Although electricity networks allow easy distribution of energy, the grid itself has no storage capacity. To store electricity, it usually has to be converted into other forms of energy. A variety of storage technologies currently exist:

Electric energy (supercapacitors)
Potential energy (pumped storage)
Mechanical energy (compressed air reservoirs, flywheels)
Electrochemical energy (batteries)
Chemical energy (H2, syngas, methanol)

The capacities and discharge times of these storage systems vary (figure 1). Energy storage with flywheels and battery systems is currently very limited, and consequently they are primarily used for short- (<1 hour) or medium-term (<1 day) load balancing. For long-term storage and seasonal balancing, currently only chemical secondary energy carriers can be used. These include hydrogen and carbon-based fuels, which can be produced from various renewable energy sources.

Notes: CAES = compressed air energy storage, PHS = pumped hydro storage, SNG = substitute natural gas.

1. Discharge time and storage capacity of different electricity storage systems. Source: Sterner, 2009; Specht et al., 2010

The BMBF Project
As the German government has decided to phase out nuclear power, renewable energy sources will play an increasing role in the nation’s electricity supply. The increasing share of solar and wind power in the electrical network raises the problem of adjusting the fluctuating energy input to demand. In Germany, the potential for pumped storage hydropower generation is limited for geological reasons.

A promising possibility is to use the excess energy to manufacture methane from hydrogen and carbon dioxide. The electrical energy is used to produce hydrogen from water; carbon dioxide can be obtained from biomass gasification, cement plants, or carbon capture from coal-fired power plants. Additionally, the methanation process releases heat, which can be used in other processes. The generated methane can then be fed into the existing natural gas grid, which has a large storage capacity.

A concept for this possibility is being developed as part of a project promoted by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF, its acronym in German). In this project, Outotec is responsible for the methanation process. The project partners are Fraunhofer ISE, Engler-Bunte-Institut (KIT-EBI), the DVGW test laboratory at the Engler-Bunte-Institut of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (DVGW-EBI), IOLITEC, h-tec Wasserstoff-Energie-Systeme, and EnBW Trading.

Outotec’s work package has two parts: first to determine the optimal process conditions and catalysts, and second to work out and estimate costs based on the developed process design. The engineering component includes the process calculation (using Aspen Plus chemical process modeling software), plant design, and cost estimates for a suitable plant size.

powermag

[Graeme]

New Market Research Report "Advanced Energy Storage Technologies: Patent Trends and Company Positioning" Has Been Added In MarketResearchReports.Biz's

Dr Victor Zhitomirsky of PatAnalyse and Dr Peter Harrop of IDTechEx have collaborated to produce the world's first computer analysis of the previously impenetrable patent thicket surrounding Advanced Energy Storage. A particular focus is electric vehicle technology such as traction batteries in general, lithium-ion traction batteries, supercapacitors/ ultracapacitors, battery management systems and charging. However, there is thorough coverage of lithium batteries and supercapacitors in general for those more widely interested in these topics. The results are startling. Some of the most respected giants of the industry are dismantling their R&D in order to pump money into production facilities just when the technology is rapidly changing. The company with a strong, broad patent portfolio, that is the fastest increasing one, is rarely mentioned in the press as a leader in this subject. Our measurements reveal that one giant landing the biggest orders rarely has its huge portfolio of patents cited, a warning on IP quality.
To Read the Complete Report with TOC Visit:

http://www.marketresearchreports.biz/analysis/131637

Supercapacitors (ultracapacitors) have a surge in demand and interest from EV manufacturers. So why is supercapacitor patenting stagnant and why is Europe largely ignoring the subject? We reveal many other openings for newcomers and opportunities for giants to realign their research. We reveal the most prolific inventors and the fine details of patent trends in many aspects of anode and cathode chemistry for example. Our sophisticated computer analysis provides the first clarity on the very different technological emphasis of the research being carried out by a host of companies and research organisations worldwide. We give our expert opinion on this.

environmental-expert

The Next Solar Power Boom Is Coming: Analyst

Investors are abandoning the solar manufacturing sector, but the solar game is far from over, according to one analyst.

"There will be a resurgence" of solar after a manufacturing shakeout, Jason Channell, director of investment research and analysis at Citigroup, told CNBC. But "we think the next boom is coming from the storage area," he said. "This is what we are the most excited about at the moment."


The main players in storage have been companies making batteries for electric vehicles. He sees Asian tech companies investing more in this part of the solar market.

cnbc

[Graeme]

Liquid air energy storage could become £1bn industry

Liquid air energy storage technology could unlock a £1bn industry and 22,000 UK jobs, according to a new report.
The report from business and academic experts and published by the Centre for Low Carbon Futures (CLCF) found that the use of liquid air for grid-based energy storage could increase UK energy security, cut greenhouse gas emissions and create a new industry worth at least £1bn a year and 22,000 jobs to the UK.

Air can be turned into a liquid by cooling it to around -196C using standard industrial equipment and kept in an unpressurised insulated vessel as a means of storing the variable energy produced by some renewable energy sources.

When the energy is needed again heat can be applied to boil the liquid air, turning it back into a gas that can be used to drive a piston engine or turbine.

The report, launched at a conference at the Royal Academy of Engineering today, highlights the opportunity for a nation-wide network of Liquid Air energy storage plants that are charged by surplus energy at night, feeding the energy back into the system when it is needed most during the day.

Professor Richard Williams, pro-vice chancellor of the University of Birmingham, who led the report, says: “Solving Britain’s energy crisis requires better ways to store the power of the wind and the sun at large scale without relying on scarce natural resources, and liquid air provides a missing piece of that puzzle.”

theiet

[Graeme]

Underwater batteries are making a splash for energy storage

Hydroelectricity generation exploits the tremendous height differential that occurs naturally at waterfalls or artificially at dams as water flows through the system. Now, efforts are underway to harness a differential of another sort for both energy storage and generation: the pressure under the sea. A Norwegian company called Subhydro is making forays into underwater hydroelectrical power plants, and Canadian company Hydrostor is creating an underwater grid storage system.

Think of water rushing in through the open hatch of a submarine, and you get an idea of the forces at work underwater. Atmospheric pressure and the weight of the water combine to create pressures that compound with increasing depth. At a depth of 400 meters (almost a quarter mile), for example, the pressure is that of 40 atmospheres, one atmosphere being the pressure we experience at sea level. Subhydro envisions installing large concrete tanks at depths of 400-800 meters, and the deeper the better for maximizing energy generation.

gigaom

[Graeme]

Better Batteries Could Revolutionize Solar, Wind Power

Faced with growing global demand for electricity and a need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions that worsen climate change, countries around the world are intensifying efforts to improve the lithium-ion battery or replace it. Still, batteries face obstacles, including cost and safety. Batteries are one of many ways to store grid-scale energy.


Batteries are key. They can directly power electric cars and buses, and indirectly, homes and big buildings, by storing solar and wind power for times when the sun doesn't shine and the wind doesn't blow. They balance out renewables that produce energy intermittently, so consumers can power laptops or run refrigerators 24/7.

The race is on. Universities, start-ups and major companies are working with new materials such as vanadium, or tweaking the lithium-ion battery that Sony introduced more than 20 years ago for personal electronics. Some advances, such as the ones that Toyota and IBM are developing to power cars for 500-plus miles on a single charge, won't make it to market for at least five years.

Others are making their debuts this year, including a battery by Ontario, Canada-based Electrovaya, which enables homes with solar panels to go entirely off grid, or one by General Electric, which will be paired with a Texas wind farm to provide continuous power.

"It's the dawn of the energy-storage age," says Bill Radvak, president of American Vanadium, which is partnering with the German CellCube battery manufacturer Gildemeister. He says storage could be the "holy grail" for renewable energy. "There was no major battery market three years ago," he says, adding that is changing quickly.

cio-today

[Graeme]

Liquefied Air Could Power Cars and Store Energy from Sun and Wind

Highview Power’s process is 50 to 60 percent efficient—the liquid air can yield just over half as much electricity as it takes to make it. Batteries, by contrast, can be more than 90 percent efficient. But the new process can make up for its inefficiency by using waste heat from other processes (see “Audi to Make Fuel Using Solar Power”). Highview has demonstrated that low-temperature waste heat from power plants or even data centers can be used to help warm up the liquefied air. The system can also last for decades, while batteries typically need to be replaced every few years. This longevity could help reduce overall costs.

Several companies are developing ways to improve the efficiency of compressing air, which could also make the liquefaction process more efficient (see “LightSail Energy Snags $37M in Funding” and “Compressed-Air System Could Aid Wind Power”). Liquefied air is about four times more energy-dense than compressed air, and storing it at a large scale takes up less space.

technologyreview

[Graeme]

California Sets Energy Storage Target of 1.3GW by 2020

California has just taken a big step forward in making grid-scale energy storage on a truly massive scale a reality. On Monday, the California Public Utilities Commission released a proposal (PDF) that would call for the state’s big three investor-owned utilities to procure 1.3 gigawatts of energy storage by decade’s end, along with market mechanisms to start the procurement process as early as next year.

The assigned commissioner ruling from CPUC Commissioner Carla J. Peterman is the result of a process that started in 2010 with the passage of California Assembly Bill 2514, the first state law calling for grid-scale energy storage. Last year, the CPUC took up the challenge of figuring out how much storage, in what forms, would meet the law’s goals, as well as how to incorporate it into the state’s existing energy and utility economic and regulatory structures.

Monday’s procurement targets go a long way toward defining those metrics, breaking down year-by-year targets for Pacific Gas & Electric, Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric across three categories -- transmission, distribution and customer-facing storage deployments -- meant to address a host of grid and energy management needs.

It also proposes a “reverse auction” market mechanism, similar to its Renewable Auction Mechanism (RAM) for wind, solar and other renewable power, to incorporate energy storage into the transmission and system-wide procurement and planning process, as well as new distribution system planning mechanisms and customer incentive programs. The first auction, to be held in June 2014, will ask the three IOUs to procure a collective 200 megawatts of storage, quite a bit more than what they’ve got today.

greentechmedia

[Graeme]

Global Energy Storage Market To 2020

CleanTechnica has a partnership with GBI Research to help get more cleantech market research reports into more people’s hands*. GBI Research recently published a new report on the Global Energy Storage Market to 2020 (in April 2013) and passed this one on to me to share with you all.


Some key takeaway points from the report, which I think you can also gather from the above charts, are that:

The advanced batteries market – which consists of Lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries, Nickel Metal Hydride (NiMH) batteries, and Nickel Cadmium (NiCd) batteries in the report — is projected to explode in the coming years, and that strong growth has already begun.

The fuel cell and ultracapacitor markets are still very nascent, but they are projected to grow to a decent size by 2020.

The flywheels market isn’t projected to do much of anything.

“Fuel cells are one of the most promising energy storage technologies, and currently attract the highest amount of investor interest among power supply technologies.

Notably, energy storage technologies the report does not cover include: Compressed Air Energy Storage (CAES) and flow batteries.

cleantechnica