THE EEStor Thread (merged)

[mos6507]

Lead acid home systems have worked well for years

Bullcrap. Existing off-grid battery options for joe public suck, and are a big reason why the few people who do install renewables go grid-tie with net-metering.

[rangerone314]

Lead acid home systems have worked well for years

Bullcrap. Existing off-grid battery options for joe public suck, and are a big reason why the few people who do install renewables go grid-tie with net-metering.

They ARE expensive. A set of lead acid forklift batteries suitable for home use costs like $5,000 and is really heavy.

[Revi]

I don't believe in having a lot of batteries.

This EEstor thing is a great idea, if it actually works.

[JRP3]

Lead acid home systems have worked well for years

Bullcrap. Existing off-grid battery options for joe public suck, and are a big reason why the few people who do install renewables go grid-tie with net-metering.

Don't tell that to the thousands of people living off grid with wind and solar for years. Not saying they are perfect by any means but properly sized and maintained they can last for 10+ years.

[mos6507]

Don't tell that to the thousands of people living off grid with wind and solar for years.

Thousands of off-gridders in a country of 300+ million people pretty much says it all. It wouldn't only be mere thousands if batteries were better.

[mos6507]

They ARE expensive. A set of lead acid forklift batteries suitable for home use costs like $5,000 and is really heavy.

Is that with or without shipping costs? You pretty much NEED a forklift to move those batteries, don't you? It must be like moving a player piano into your house.

Anyway, if you do the math, that's $41 a month spread out over 10 years, assuming you really get 10 years out of them. Then it's lather, rinse, and repeat. It's not that hard to keep your electric bill at or below $41 bucks, and that's JUST for the batteries, not turbines and/or PV array.

The least one could ask for is the up front expense on a renewable system to be a one-time-only thing. That would be true of PV and inverter, but not the battery bank.

Something like EESTOR would really help there.

[sparky]

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Thanks JRP3 , fascinating link ,I bookmarked it .

mos6507 , one only need a pallet forklift , the manual version can move tons on level ground

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[JRP3]

Mos, I don't understand the concern about battery weight in a home system. Do you worry about how much the blocks in your basement weigh, or the concrete? How often do you think you'll be moving your battery bank around? It's not an issue. I'm also not sure where you get that $5000 price tag. 16 225ah 6 volt Trojans will give you a 48 volt 21.6kwh pack for about $2400, which gives you 10kwh at less than 50% DOD, and by shallow cycling they would have a very long life. If you're careful and worked to keep your usage low you could cut the pack size and price in half.

[yesplease]

Thousands of off-gridders in a country of 300+ million people pretty much says it all. It wouldn't only be mere thousands if batteries were better.

I've gotta say, this is the first logical fallcy I notice you use, which is pretty impressive for this forum. But back OT, grid-tie is dominant because of the nature of consruction. If I could get back the thousands of dollars it cost to connect my house to the grid, I would be inclined to consider battery storage, but as it stands people can't get that money back, so they go with grid-tied installs.

[mos6507]

by shallow cycling they would have a very long life..

Is a battery that is never used, still a battery? A battery is there presumably to be used. Avoiding going over a certain DOD, or firing up a gas or diesel generator occasionally to top it off, is all part of why they suck and why it's holding back off-grid and EV adoption.

You're not going to get that kind of admission from off-grid and EV advocates due to selection bias.

[sparky]

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The grid exist because it provide unrestricted power on a demand basis at 15 cents a Kilowatt


diesel back up exist because , associated wit uninterrupted power supplies,
you could be in a surgery theater and not worry about a drop in supplies

.

[JRP3]

by shallow cycling they would have a very long life..

Is a battery that is never used, still a battery? A battery is there presumably to be used. Avoiding going over a certain DOD, or firing up a gas or diesel generator occasionally to top it off, is all part of why they suck and why it's holding back off-grid and EV adoption.

So the starting battery in your car is not a battery, since it's shallow cycled and never uses it's full capacity? It's called properly sizing a battery, and I've outlined how it can be done rather cheaply using 100 year old lead acid technology. Newer large scale prismatics may have gotten cheap enough, have more usable capacity, and may last long enough that they make sense for off grid usage in the long run, the jury is still out on their calendar life. Is it ideal, of course not, does it compete with centrally generated power that comes from transmission lines right in front of your house, of course not. The fact is that large scale electricity generation is really cheap and you won't be able to beat it unless it gets much more expensive and/or some miracle "EESTOR" type technology actually appears, and is affordable. However for some people living far enough from the grid battery systems are already cheaper than trying to connect to the grid.

[TheAntiDoomer]

Hamilton: Race is on to build a better electric-car battery

http://www.thestar.com/business/cleanbr ... ar-battery

ZENN, you may recall, owns a minority stake in Texas-based EEStor Inc., which is building a new energy-storage device based on ultracapacitor technology that could – if it works as promised – render conventional electro-chemical batteries obsolete. In addition to ZENN's 10.7 per cent ownership of EEStor, the company also has exclusive rights to use the technology in vehicles with a curb weight of up to 1,400 kilograms.

The Star in March 2006 was the first newspaper in the world to write about EEStor, which is partly funded by venture capital powerhouse Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers and has collaborated with Lockheed Martin to develop power-packed military weapons.

[mos6507]

However for some people living far enough from the grid battery systems are already cheaper than trying to connect to the grid.

My main interest in the topic is to root for renewable build-out for the masses. That a token few off-gridders living in the boonies can make the cost-benefit assessment work on a lead acid battery bank when they weigh their options is irrelevant.

[mos6507]

Hamilton: Race is on to build a better electric-car battery

http://www.thestar.com/business/cleanbr ... ar-battery

There he is proudly posing in front of cars that he will no longer be manufacturing.

[TheAntiDoomer]

Secretive Startup EEStor Worth More Than $1.5 Billion

http://www.wired.com/autopia/2009/10/eestor/#Replay

EEStor, the ultracapacitor company that has produced more obscure technology milestone announcements than evidence of a working energy storage unit, may have an implied market value of more than $1.5 billion.

The secretive startup in Austin, Texas, claims to have developed a new kind of capacitor that can store enough energy to propel an electric car 300 miles on a single charge. The company is not publicly traded, so investors who want to speculate on its “breakthrough technology” claims have only one way to get in on the action: Zenn Motor Company (ZNN: CA) That publicly traded Canadian firm, which first made an equity investment in EEStor in 2007, has upped its stake at each key milestone, culminating in a 10.7% ownership stake today. As a result, investors in effect get a small investment in EEStor as part of the deal.

[mos6507]

That doesn't say anything. Mark Cuban was paid close to 6 billion dollars for Broadcast.com and what became of it?

[Demoth]

There is one possible reason for EEStor's continued silence and this could well involve Lockheed Martin. The smart grid projects have been classified to an extent even before Obama was in office. Someone could have told them to keep quiet.

http://seekingalpha.com/article/160075- ... smart-grid

http://www.greentechnologydaily.com/sma ... rid-market

http://www.greentechnologydaily.com/sol ... wer-system

If this technology pans out, it is indeed the next lightbulb. Even if the ceramics turn out to be too fragile for a vehicle power plant at this time, a cheap, compact and set/forget way to store any type of off grid or off peak grid power is major. First run specs with 1 million charge cycles before significant degradation occurs makes lead acid batteries look like a stone age hand axe.

Really, it's wait and see. I really can't see the names behind EEStor risking serious prison time for some kind of Zenn stock kickback. I'm hoping if this tech is legit, the feds will make EEStor share the patent rights with all comers for a minimal cost, thus making it widely and quickly adopted.

I'd also recommend against buying Zenn stock as they are parasites at this point and will be a confounding factor in getting this technology spread as fast as it should be.

[JRP3]

I'm hoping if this tech is legit, the feds will make EEStor share the patent rights with all comers for a minimal cost, thus making it widely and quickly adopted.

I wouldn't count on that at all.

[BigTex]

...tick tock...tick tock...

Waiting

for

something

to

happen