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#Post#: 412--------------------------------------------------
Batteries
By: AGelbert Date: November 21, 2013, 1:49 pm
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[move]Yes, the article is over a year old but the technology is
still there and still working GREAT! It's another innovative
example of storing energy to avoid peak demands or spikes using
a type of battery with UNLIMITED CHARGE CYCLES!
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[/move]
Is That Onions You Smell? Or Battery Juice?
05/16/2012
Gills Onions, a food processing company based in Oxnard, Calif.,
needs copious amounts of electricity for refrigeration, lighting
and other jobs, and it sets an example by making its own, using
onion waste. But it recently became a little greener — and more
economical — by adding an enormous battery.
Gills processes about a million pounds of onions a day. Of that,
about 300,000 pounds a day — the tops, bottoms and outer peels —
is waste. “We slice, we dice, we whole-peel,’’ said Nikki
Rodoni, a spokeswoman. Disposing of that material involved
considerable labor as well as diesel fuel for the trucks, and
storing it on site made the company unpopular with neighbors,
she said.
So a few years ago Gills switched to squeezing the wastes to
produce about 30,000 gallons of juice. It might not be to human
tastes, but it is rich in sugars and attractive to bacteria.
The juice goes into a device called an anaerobic digester,
basically an oxygen-free chamber, where bacteria break it down
and produce methane gas. After it is cleaned and dried, the
methane is fed to two fuel cells that quietly and cleanly covert
it to 600 kilowatts of electricity. (The remainder of the onion
waste becomes cattle feed.)
[img width=640
height=380]
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That cost $10.8 million, but it worked well. Still, at some
hours, Gills needs far more than 600 kilowatts — about three
times as much. Then it must buy electricity from Southern
California Edison, and for Gills, that posed two problems.
One was that it was buying energy at the most expensive time of
the day, weekday afternoons, when the system’s loads are high.
The other is that commercial customers like Gills pay not only
for energy, but also for peak capacity, or the highest level of
power demand that they require in the course of a month.
So it is now taking a second, unusual approach to electricity,
harnessing a gigantic battery built by Prudent Energy of
Bethesda, Md. The Prudent battery is the same in principle as
many others, with a liquid electrolyte that can shuttle ions
back and forth to absorb current or create it. [i]But it has
external tanks to store huge volumes of electrolyte and takes up
a space the size of a tennis court.
The battery can absorb or give back another 600 kilowatts for as
long as six hours. Fully charged, it holds enough energy to run
a large suburban house for about four months.
In California, with time-of-use rates, the electricity can be
bought at night for less than half what it costs during the day.
It is not pure savings because the battery loses 10 to 30
percent of the energy in the round trip from the grid to the
battery and back out again on its way to the electricity-using
device.
But in addition to letting the company pay nighttime prices for
electricity used in the daytime, the battery provides a kind of
insurance: it can step in instantaneously if one of the fuel
cells unexpectedly shuts down, according to Jeff Pierson, senior
vice president of Prudent. That prevents a spike in Gills’s
demand from the grid and thus eliminates higher demand charges.
The two companies did not disclose the price of the battery. It
will initially be owned by Prudent, with Gills having an option
to buy it later. Called a vanadium battery for the material used
in the electrolyte, it is the largest of its kind in the world,
Mr. Pierson said. He suggested that similar ones could be
installed around the country.
“This time-of-use play is not unique to California,’’ he said.
“There are plenty of other places around the country where you
have that sort of differential between off-peak and peak.’’
Batteries like this one have a variety of potential uses. Grid
operators around the country are looking for storage devices
that can accept signals to draw power off the system or give it
back on short notice — usually at four-second intervals — to
balance supply and demand and keep the alternating current
system properly synchronized.
And on the West Coast, electric grid operators are going to
greater lengths to find ways to compensate for sudden surges or
drops in generation from wind or solar installations. Batteries
like Prudent’s can do both, although the one at Gills is not
currently set up for those tasks.
For more information:
Prudent Energy Corporation[img width=640
height=380]
HTML http://s3.amazonaws.com/crunchbase_prod_assets/assets/images/original/0007/8872/78872v1.jpg[/img]
7200 Wisconsin Avenue | 10th Floor | Bethesda, MD | 20814-7227
Main: 1-301-825-8910 | Fax: 1-301-825-8914 | www.pdenergy.com
HTML http://www.pdenergy.com/news-051612-isthatonions.php
#Post#: 545--------------------------------------------------
Re: Batteries
By: AGelbert Date: December 13, 2013, 10:20 pm
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DoE Energy Storage Report Praised By ESA
The US Department of Energy has released their Grid Energy
Storage report to the members of the Senate Energy and Natural
Resources Committee, identifying the benefits of grid energy
storage, the challenges to be addressed, and the current efforts
being made to meet those selfsame challenges.
In response, the Electricity Storage Association has publicly
praised the report, “noting that it affirms that wide-scale
deployment of storage technologies in the U.S. and around the
world is critical to maintaining a resilient, cost-effective
electric grid.”
“The ESA is pleased that the Department of Energy will be
providing analysis, tools, and opportunities for public-private
partnerships–playing to the strengths of the agency while
enhancing the ability of the energy storage industry to move
forward with commercialization,” said Darrell Hayslip, Chairman
of the Electricity Storage Association. ”The report certainly
reinforces our view that storage is an essential component to a
more resilient, reliable, and balanced energy grid. ESA believes
that it is not a matter of whether storage will be deployed; it
is a matter of how fast that occurs. Given the focus indicated
in this report, DOE is poised to assist in those efforts.”
“Energy storage is a vital component of a more resilient,
reliable and efficient electric grid,” said Energy Secretary
Ernest Moniz. “We must continue developing innovative energy
storage technologies and finding new ways to ensure wider
adoption to help move the nation closer to the grid of the
future.”
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height=380]
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Portland General Electric’s Salem Smart Power Center includes a
large-scale energy storage system.
Image Credit: Portland General via Flickr
The report highlights four challenges that must be addressed if
energy storage is to be widely developed and accepted:
the development of cost-effective energy storage technologies
validated reliability and safety
an equitable regulatory environment
industry acceptance
The DoE noted that energy storage is ultimately necessary now,
more than ever, given the increasing trend towards renewable
energies which are inherently unstable in their energy
production — solar relying on daylight and cloudless skies, wind
on strong winds, etc. Incorporating energy storage into the grid
will become more and more necessary, as these energy
technologies will at times be producing more than is necessary —
energy that will need to be stored — and sometimes producing
less than is expected — at which point energy storage can step
in to fill the gap.
“Developing and deploying energy storage opens the door to
adding more renewable power to the grid, which is essential to
the fight against climate change,” Wyden said. “Energy storage
will also help lower consumer costs by saving low-cost power for
peak times and making renewable energy available when it’s
needed the most, not just when the wind is blowing or the sun is
shining. I’m looking forward to working with Secretary Moniz to
find ways to implement the DOE’s recommendations to make energy
storage an integral part of our country’s electricity grid.”
The Department of Energy released four key strategies from the
report:
Cost-competitive energy storage technology can be achieved
through research, resolving economic and performance barriers,
and creating analytical tools for design, manufacturing,
innovation and deployment.
The reliability and safety of energy storage technologies can be
validated through research and development, creation of standard
testing protocols, independent testing against utility
requirements, and documenting the performance of installed
systems.
Establishing an equitable regulatory environment is possible by
conducting public-private evaluations of grid benefits,
exploring technology-neutral mechanisms for monetizing grid
services, and developing industry and regulatory agency-accepted
standards for siting, grid integration, procurement and
performance evaluation.
Industry acceptance can be achieved through field trials and
demonstrations and use of industry-accepted planning and
operational tools to incorporate storage onto the grid.
This report goes a long way to increasing the awareness of the
need for energy storage, but comes in the wake of other good
news, as late November the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission
adopted Order 792.
As FERC explained when issuing Order 792:
the Commission finds it necessary under section 206 of the
Federal Power Act to revise the pro forma SGIP [Small Generator
Interconnection Procedures] and pro forma SGIA [Small Generator
Interconnection Agreement] to ensure that the rates, terms and
conditions under which public utilities provide interconnection
service to Small Generating Facilities remain just and
reasonable and not unduly discriminatory.
As Tina Casey explained in her November article, “Rule 792 adds
energy storage as a power source that is eligible to connect to
the grid. It effectively puts energy storage in the same
category as the existing Small Generator Interconnection
Procedures and makes it eligible for the existing Fast Track
process.”
With Federal and academic support, not to mention enormous
public support among clean energy supporters, energy storage is
likely to soon be playing a much larger role in America’s energy
future. Without a doubt there will still be stiff resistance
from the entrenched energy market, but as solar and wind figures
continue to grow, it is only a matter of time before the grid
starts to see mass adoption of energy storage as a means to
smooth out the intricacies of renewable energy delivery.
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#Post#: 546--------------------------------------------------
Re: Batteries
By: AGelbert Date: December 13, 2013, 10:42 pm
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Japanese energy giants rush into storage as solar booms
By Giles Parkinson on 4 December 2013
Japan is emerging as a hot-spot for energy storage projects, as
utilities and technology companies look to battery-based
solutions in response to the surge in solar PV installations.
Two new battery storage projects have been announced in the past
week, with Toshiba to install a 20MWh/40MW lithium-ion battery
project in Tohuku, and the island of Okinawa announcing a 2MW
battery storage project on Tuesday.
Japan is expected to be the largest market for solar PV
installations in 2013, with around 9GW to be installed following
the introduction of feed in tariffs last year in response to the
Fukushima nuclear disaster.
This year, the Japanese government launched a $300 million grant
program to support the installation of large scale battery
systems to help integrate renewables into the grid.
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Bloomberg New Energy Finance reports that that the Toshiba
system announced on November 26 will provide frequency
regulation and operating reserves for Tohoku Electric. It is due
to be commissioned in February next year.
On Okinawa, the country’s southern-most island, the Ministry of
Economy, Trade and Industry announced a 2MW lead battery storage
system to respond to up to 57MW of solar farms of 300kW or more
that are expected to be in place by the end of the year.
The ministry says this is reaching capacity for the island and
new systems may not be able to be installed without storage. The
2MW system may increase the renewable capacity by around 10 per
cent. The pilot project will be combined with another study into
grid management.
Earlier this year, the northern island of Hokkaido also
announced a 60MWh/15MW redox flow battery storage project would
be built by Sumitomo because of the large amount of solar PV
systems being installed.
Hokkaido Electric has received applications for 1.6GW of solar
PV projects of 2MW or more, thanks to its large amounts of
available land, but the utility estimates it can only cope with
400MW of that. It has only one 600MW inteconnecter with
neighbouring Tohuku Electric.
Japan intends to reform its regional grid system and electricity
market in the next few years to facilitate the introduction of
more distributed energy. Currently 10 regional utilities are
responsible for different sections of the grid and have a
monopoly in each region for generation, transmission and
distribution, and legislation is being introduced to loosen the
control of the vertically-integrated utilities.
HTML http://reneweconomy.com.au/2013/japanese-energy-giants-rush-storage-solar-booms-58508
#Post#: 723--------------------------------------------------
Re: Batteries
By: AGelbert Date: January 23, 2014, 2:40 pm
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Sweet Science: Researcher Develops Energy-dense Sugar Battery
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Zeke Barlow, Virginia Tech
January 23, 2014
A Virginia Tech research team has developed a battery that runs
on sugar and has an unmatched energy density, a development that
could replace conventional batteries with ones that are cheaper,
refillable, and biodegradable.
The findings from Y.H. Percival Zhang, an associate professor of
biological systems engineering in the College of Agriculture and
Life Sciences and the College of Engineering, were published
today in the journal Nature Communications.
While other sugar batteries have been developed, this one has an
energy density an order of magnitude higher than others,
allowing it to run longer before needing to be refueled, Zhang
said.
In as soon as three years, Zhang's new battery could be running
some of the cell phones, tablets, video games, and the myriad
other electronic gadgets that require power in our energy-hungry
world, Zhang said.
"Sugar is a perfect energy storage compound in nature," Zhang
said. "So it's only logical that we try to harness this natural
power in an environmentally friendly way to produce a battery."
In America alone, billions of toxic batteries are thrown away
every year, posing a threat to both the environment and human
health, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
Zhang's development could help keep hundreds of thousands of
tons of batteries from ending up in landfills.
This is one of Zhang's discoveries in the last year that utilize
a series of enzymes mixed together in combinations not found in
nature. He has published articles on creating edible starch from
non-food plants and developed a new way to extract hydrogen in
an economical and environmentally friendly way that can be used
to power vehicles.
In this newest development, Zhang and his colleagues constructed
a non-natural synthetic enzymatic pathway that strip all charge
potentials from the sugar to generate electricity in an
enzymatic fuel cell. Then, low-cost biocatalyst enzymes are used
as catalyst instead of costly platinum, which is typically used
in conventional batteries.
Like all fuel cells, the sugar battery combines fuel — in this
case, maltodextrin, a polysaccharide made from partial
hydrolysis of starch — with air to generate electricity and
water as the main byproducts.
"We are releasing all electron charges stored in the sugar
solution slowly step-by-step by using an enzyme cascade," Zhang
said.
Different from hydrogen fuel cells and direct methanol fuel
cells, the fuel sugar solution is neither explosive nor
flammable and has a higher energy storage density. The enzymes
and fuels used to build the device are biodegradable.
The battery is also refillable and sugar can be added to it much
like filling a printer cartridge with ink. [img width=60
height=50]
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HTML http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2014/01/sweet-science-researcher-develops-energy-dense-sugar-battery
HTML http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2014/01/sweet-science-researcher-develops-energy-dense-sugar-battery
Agelbert NOTE: IT'S ABOUT TIME Homo SAP started using and
storing energy like the biosphere does (i.e. releasing all
electron charges stored in the sugar solution slowly
step-by-step by using an enzyme cascade)!
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#Post#: 724--------------------------------------------------
Re: Batteries
By: AGelbert Date: January 23, 2014, 3:15 pm
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Jan 22, 2014
Author
Laurie Guevara-​Stone
Writer / Editor
Batteries to Bolster Solar
Looking beyond SolarCity and Tesla’s backup system
When SolarCity and Tesla last month announced they were teaming
up to offer battery backup for residential solar PV systems,
they generated much excitement … and a disproportionate amount
of press. From Greentech Media to the New York Times, stories
abound about how the union of these two companies heralds the
next stage in the evolution of distributed energy resources.
[img width=320
height=380]
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height=280]
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Yet solar-plus-storage has actually been around for decades. In
fact, it was what kickstarted the solar industry in the early
1980s. A bunch of marijuana “farmers” in northern California who
weren’t connected to the grid needed a way to get electric
lights for their grow operations. A young hippie stumbled upon
an ARCO solar panel at a consumer electronics show, and soon
after founded AEE Solar and started powering off-grid homes with
solar panels and car batteries, and his customers always paid in
cash.
With the 1990s’ deregulation and incentives for solar PV,
grid-connected systems became popular, and the only people
worried about storage were those trying to electrify remote
homes in lesser-developed countries. But solar and storage
systems became a hot topic once again in 1999, when people were
worried about Y2K and the potential end of society as we know
it. “We were glad when homeowners wanted to learn about
grid-tied PV systems with battery storage,” Johnny Weiss,
founder of Solar Energy International, told RMI. “After January
1, 2000 came and went without disaster, interest in batteries
clearly seemed to become less important.”
That interest is now back. Whether due to disasters like
Superstorm Sandy, when millions of homes lost power, or to the
ability of commercial customers to reduce hefty demand charges
through peak shaving, the idea of putting solar and batteries
together is gaining a lot of renewed attention.
Making Storage Sexy
The new SolarCity/Tesla partnership uses Tesla’s battery
technology to offer backup power for SolarCity’s residential
solar customers. However, the actual product offering is not
that new; others have been offering similar products for years.
Green Charge Networks’ GreenStations and Stem’s battery systems,
for example, decrease electrical costs for commercial and
industrial customers by storing power during non-peak hours for
use during peak periods. GreenStations have already been
installed in multiple locations throughout New York City. Stem
claims utility bills for companies using its storage system will
be cut by 10–40 percent.
Then there’s Solar Grid Storage. Maryland’s first microgrid,
installed this past October at Konterra headquarters, uses a 402
kW array with a Solar Grid Storage system that will keep 50 kW
online for over four hours if the grid goes down. And on the
residential side, NRG is offering solar canopies—shade
structures constructed of photovoltaic panels with a battery to
store the electricity for use at night or during a blackout.
Utility companies are also getting into the game, with San Diego
Borrego Springs and the Sacramento Municipal Utility District
both currently testing home-level storage.
What is exciting is all the attention that is being drawn to it,
thanks to the big names of Tesla and Solar City and the man that
links them: Elon Musk. Musk seems to bring high visibility to
anything he does, and the solar-plus-battery offering is no
exception. “Both Solar City and Tesla are known to be insurgents
and disruptors,
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and
that’s why there’s so much attention on this particular
offering,” says RMI senior associate Leia Guccione. While before
not many people paid attention to solar-plus-battery systems,
“Tesla adds that sexy element, where people are definitely
paying attention now.”
Yet the significance is not that Tesla and Solar City are
bringing us into a new paradigm, but that the solar-plus-storage
idea is gaining a whole lot of traction. “For a long time
battery energy storage was referred to as the holy grail of
energy; people said it will become viable when we figure out
cold fusion,” according to Guccione. “Now people know this is a
technology that’s coming out of infancy, and more companies are
coming out with commercial offerings. This is further evidence
that battery energy storage is here and is here to stay.” RMI
associate Bodhi Rader adds: “More people are entering the space.
We could call this a game-changing moment.”
Beyond Backup
What’s even more exciting in the solar-plus-battery arena is
what batteries offer beyond backup—to both solar PV and the grid
and utilities. Voltage and frequency regulation. Black-start
capability after macro- or microgrid outages. Using batteries as
a less expensive alternative to peaking plants during
high-demand periods. Demand charge reductions via peak shaving.
Shifting load profiles with batteries to take better advantage
of time-of-use electricity pricing. And the list goes on.
If current trends are any indication, soon batteries may become
a common part of solar PV systems, including residential. “This
will be a whole-home energy solution,” according to Guccione.
“That’s where the next frontier is, and we hope to see SolarCity
and Tesla go there.”
And pretty soon it won’t just be for those in the higher-income
bracket. Bloomberg New Energy Finance predicts that battery
storage costs will fall 57 percent by 2020. And Lux Research
sees the global market for PV systems combined with battery
storage growing from the current $200 million dollars a year to
$2.8 billion in 2018.
“We look at economics as the thing that will bring the critical
mass to the tipping point,” says Guccione. “There has to be a
whole wave of first movers—but the increasingly favorable
economics will evolve solar-plus-battery systems from early
adopters to a mainstream solution.” And that’s why it is so
exciting that more companies are starting to offer battery
storage. Solar installers will start to get asked if they offer
battery storage options more often, and with more demand and
more players entering the field, the price will go down, utility
companies will come up with innovative business models, and a
solar system without battery storage will seem so last decade.
New business models will make it easy for customers to add
storage to existing systems or build storage into new systems,
through leasing and third-party financing models similar to what
has made rooftop PV so accessible. And solar-plus-battery
systems will be available to the masses, not just to off-grid
pot farmers who can pay in cash. All good news for people
wanting clean, reliable electricity.
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#Post#: 833--------------------------------------------------
Tesla to create battery packs that "last long, are super s
afe & compact".
By: AGelbert Date: February 28, 2014, 5:06 pm
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[move]Musk Says Renewable Energy Shift to Bring ‘Strife’ for
Utilities ;D[/move]
Mark Chediak and Alan Ohnsman, Bloomberg
February 28, 2014
LOS ANGELES -- Tesla Motors Inc. Chief Executive Officer Elon
Musk said shifting to greater use of solar and wind power will
challenge utility companies.
The shift to much greater use of renewable energy will bring
“some amount of strife for the existing utilities, especially
for those invested more heavily in fossil fuels,” Musk, who is
also chairman of solar-power company SolarCity Corp., said today
at a California Public Utilities Commission event in San
Francisco.
Tesla, the electric-car maker, based in Palo Alto, California,
said yesterday it plans to invest as much as $5 billion to build
the world’s largest battery factory. The company is seeking to
drive down the cost of lithium-ion batteries used in its cars by
at least 30 percent. Tesla also has developed a battery that
could be used to provide backup power to homes, commercial sites
and utilities, according to a regulatory filing yesterday.
Tesla is “working to create stationary battery packs that last
long, are super safe and are compact,” Musk said.
Musk and his cousin, SolarCity CEO Lyndon Rive, spoke at the
commission as part of its “Thought Leaders” series. The agency
regulates power companies in the state.
“There is no doubt storage will become cost effective and
deliver electricity with storage at night,” Rive said.
Utilities in California, which are taking months to connect
residential solar panels to their systems, are delaying change
because they profit from the current system, Rive said.
‘Existing Game’
“When you have a game-changing technology, those in the game
don’t want to change,” Rive said. “They like the existing game,
the sole source, cost-plus model.”
Rive said it now takes eight months for utilities in California
to connect a SolarCity solar and energy storage system to the
grid.
Tesla’s proposed battery factory could accelerate changes in the
electric utility business as more customers start producing and
storing their own power, Adam Jonas, a Morgan Stanley analyst,
said in a Feb. 25 note. Musk is also chairman and the largest
shareholder in SolarCity, which is now offering Tesla batteries
as part of a system for its rooftop solar customers in parts of
California and New England.
Other companies are starting to provide similar products as
customers seek ways to cut the cord to the traditional U.S.
monopoly power utility, which had sales totaling about $360
billion in 2012.
‘Storage Opportunity’
The company has said it’s exploring locations in Texas, Nevada,
Arizona and New Mexico for the 10 million-square-foot battery
facility that would be key to expanding Tesla’s production from
35,000 cars a year to 500,000 or more.
“While the grid storage opportunity makes the Tesla story more
interesting and is likely to further boost stock momentum, we do
not see it as a financial game changer,” Barclays Plc analysts
led by Brian Johnson, who rates Tesla the equivalent of a hold,
said in a note to clients today.
Tesla dropped 0.2 percent to close at $252.54 in New York, the
first day this week it hasn’t closed at a record high. The stock
has jumped 68 percent this year. SolarCity rose 1.4 percent to a
record $86.14.
Copyright 2014 Bloomberg
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#Post#: 1310--------------------------------------------------
The Wide Appeal of Batteries for the Renewable Energy Market
By: AGelbert Date: June 6, 2014, 9:26 pm
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[img width=640
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The Wide Appeal of Batteries for the Renewable Energy Market
Both the developing and the developed world have reasons to
employ battery technology. Here’s why. ;D
Bruce Dorminey, Correspondent
June 05, 2014
HTML http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2014/06/the-wide-appeal-of-batteries-for-the-renewable-energy-market?cmpid=WNL-Friday-June6-2014
#Post#: 1514--------------------------------------------------
Re: Batteries
By: AGelbert Date: July 10, 2014, 4:20 pm
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Lithium or Vanadium:
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In
Energy Storage, It’s No Contest
Bill Watkins, Imergy Power Systems
July 10, 2014
Agelbert NOTE: Mr. Watkins' book is Vanadium, so his bias shows.
But his statements are, overall, accurate. The downsides of
Lithium batteries are technological hurdles that will improve. I
think there is ample room for both these technologies and
several other battery electrolyte technologies as well. ;D
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Energy storage is poised to transform the electricity industry.
In the U.S. alone, energy storage will grow 6x, from 120
megawatts to over 720 megawatts by 2020. Globally, it will bring
power for the first time to over a billion people by letting
them tap into micro-grids. [img width=80
height=70]
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Lithium and vanadium have both been offered up as a basis for
the storage economy. But which technology will win? Here are
some facts about each – draw your own conclusions.
Cell Design
Lithium
Lithium batteries store their energy in cells. Some are flat.
Some are cylindrical, but you’re familiar with what they are:
relatively small, self-contained devices that get hot. There are
probably two in your phone and six in your notebook. But in a
grid scale storage system, you need hundreds of thousands of
them. It would be sort of like building an industrial-scale cold
storage facility with a bunch of portable refrigerators. You can
do it; it just won’t work well.
Vanadium
Vanadium flow batteries store their energy in tanks. The
electrolyte — the fluid that transfers charges inside a battery
— flows from one tank through the system back to the same tank.
The tanks can be fish tank size or bigger than an above ground
pool. As a result — and you will see this over and over again —
it’s much easier to adapt flow batteries to industrial-scale
applications without adding a lot of cost. You just make the
tank bigger.
Cost
Lithium
Bloomberg New Energy Finance says the average cost of a
lithium-ion based storage system is $1,750 a kilowatt hour. The
cost includes the cells, electronics, installation and balance
of systems expenses. By 2020, Baird Research projects that Tesla
Motors' planned gigafactory will be able to produce energy
storage systems for $400 a kilowatt hour — all in — and sell
them for $500 a kilowatt hour.
Vanadium
Some vanadium batteries already provide complete energy storage
systems for $500 per kilowatt hour, a figure that will fall
below $300 per kilowatt hour in less than a year. That is a full
five years before the gigafactory hits its stride. By 2020,
those energy storage systems will be produced for $150 a kwh.
Then there is scaling. If you want to double the size of a
lithium system, you double the price: a ten kilowatt system
would cost $17,500. With vanadium, you just increase the size of
the tank, so the price per kilowatt hour goes down. Suddenly,
the prices are going in different directions. Bigger is better.
Lifetime
Lithium
Grid batteries have to last for decades. The average age of a
substation transformer in the U.S. is 42 years. Lithium ion
batteries have a finite life. Performance degrades over time and
is impacted by heat, operating conditions and how deep, and how
often, they have been discharged. Battery University notes that
the capacity of lithium ion cells can drop to a 50 percent level
after 1,200 to 1,500 discharges.
Vanadium
Vanadium-based flow energy storage systems can operate forever.
The active ingredient is a low-cost, rechargeable electrolyte,
which never wears out due to the type of chemical reaction
involved. The electronics and software to manage the system can
be easily upgraded like any computer. The last major component —
the plastic tanks for holding the electrolyte — lasts for
decades.
Applicable Markets
Lithium
So with lithium you’ve got a small, expensive battery with a
finite lifetime. To build a storage system for running demand
response programs or a backup system that can provide four to
six hours of power, you need thousands of cells. It’s like
building a warehouse-scale facility with suitcases.
But it gets worse. Lithium batteries also are subject to
“thermal runaway” reactions, i.e. they can blow up.
Agelbert NOTE: "blowing up" is a low probability event in
comparison with the explosion hazard of driving around with a
tank a highly explosive liquid called GASOLINE. Of course a
GIANT swimming pool sized Lithium battery would pose somewhat of
a risk and would need safeguards. The writer obviously prefers
vanadium for many good reasons but the explosion thing is
hyperbole. ;)
Vanadium
Vanadium-based systems are made for industrial-size applications
from a few kilowatts to several megawatts. And there is no
danger of thermal reactions.
Manufacturing and Scalability
Lithium
Manufacturing lithium ion cells isn’t easy. Lithium ion cell
maker A123 Systems filed for bankruptcy less than three years
after it held an IPO.
“The lithium ion battery manufacturing space is not for the weak
of heart,” says Sam Jaffe, senior research analyst with Navigant
Research. “The electric vehicle market is growing slowly and the
battery manufacturers are engaged in a Darwinian fight for
survival.”
Tesla Motors’ Gigafactory would double the worldwide capacity to
50 Gigawatt hours worth of batteries and cost $5 billion
dollars. It’s a big risk. It’s also worth noting that there is
already significant unused lithium ion battery manufacturing
capacity among vendors in Korea, China and Japan.
Vanadium
Setting up a Vanadium storage manufacturing facility is simple
and very low cost — orders of magnitude less expensive than the
proposed Gigafactory. The production process is also simple,
and ecologically safe. The electrolyte and other active
components are combined as one process step, the enclosure, made
of pipes, tanks and electronics is assembled as a second process
step, and they are then assembled into battery packs. As a
result, total worldwide capacity can “flow” much easier:
manufacturing capacity can be added incrementally.
Efficiency
Lithium batteries are 85 percent efficient over shallow
discharges when new. Flow batteries are around 75 percent
efficient. But if you operate lithium ion batteries in an
environment above 40 Celsius, the charge rate (i.e. the time it
takes to charge) drops by 25 percent and the lifetime cycles
drop by 33 percent. Below minus 20 Celsius, the charge rate
drops by 40 percent. Imergy’s Vanadium batteries aren’t
impacted.
Environmental Impact
Lithium
Lithium batteries for the most part aren’t recycled.
Economically, it is just not worth it. The price of battery
grade lithium hydroxide has more than tripled to $7,600 a ton.
Most lithium comes from mines and brine pit operations in
Australia, Bolivia, Chile and Argentina. Talison Lithium, the
largest producer in the world, extracts more than 350,000 tons
of lithium ores out of a single mine a year.
Vanadium
Imergy Power Systems has come up with an innovative technique to
extract vanadium for its storage systems from mine tailings,
depleted oil wells and oil storage depots. To get our active
ingredient, we clean up environmental hazards.
HTML http://www.pic4ever.com/images/treeswing.gif
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HTML http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2014/07/lithium-or-vanadium-in-energy-storage-its-no-contest
Agelbert NOTE:For the pro-fossil fuel terminally dense, the
above means that BATTERIES + SOLAR PV = NIGHTIME SOLAR POWER
(with much more energy available than there EVER WAS with fossil
fuels - 16TW/year versus 23,000 TW/year :o potential from
SOLAR ALONE!
HTML http://dl3.glitter-graphics.net/pub/465/465823jzy0y15obs.gif).<br
/>Of course said math challenged fossil fueler whiners will clai
m
that the POOR efficiency factor of PV negates all that 23,000
potential TW/year figure.
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You see, people like
that never learned how do percentage calculations. That is, 16
is 0.0007% of 23,000. Uhh, PV is just a BIT MORE EFFICIENT than
THAT!
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height=280]
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[move]I apologize to all those who can add and subtract for
presenting the graphic below. It is placed there for logic and
laws of thermodynamics challenged FOSSIL FUELERS that claim
solar PV CANNOT provide energy at night! ;D [/move]
[img width=640
height=380]
HTML http://www.renewablegreenenergypower.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/how-solar-panels-work.jpg[/img]
And of course there are OTHER RENEWABLE ENERGY technologies, out
there that will help at night...
[img width=640
height=320]
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[img width=640
height=340]
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#Post#: 1654--------------------------------------------------
Tesla Breaks Ground for Its Gigafactory in Nevada
By: AGelbert Date: August 4, 2014, 9:20 pm
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Tesla Breaks Ground for Its Gigafactory in Nevada
James Nash and Alan Ohnsman, Bloomberg
HTML http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2014/08/tesla-breaks-ground-for-its-gigafactory-in-nevada
#Post#: 1715--------------------------------------------------
Re: Batteries
By: AGelbert Date: August 19, 2014, 9:19 pm
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Grid Battery Storage: Four Reasons to Invest
The emerging battery storage market will present new
opportunities for investors.
Richard Heap, A Word About Wind
HTML http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2014/07/grid-battery-storage-four-reasons-to-invest
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