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24M, spun out of an MIT laboratory, claims its latest semi-solid battery ‘breakthrough’, Dual Electrolyte technology, heralds a new era to come for advanced lithium batteries. Andy Colthorpe spoke to some of the company’s leadership team to find out more.
Flow battery maker Avalon has initiated a novel business model aimed at lowering the cost of deployment of its energy storage units, effectively ‘renting’ the electrolytes in the devices to a customer in California.
Tesla will acquire Maxwell Technologies, it was announced this week, although it is not clear yet which of Maxwell’s product lines, including ultracapacitors, are of most interest to the Silicon Valley automaker and new energy company.
News in brief from around the world of energy storage.
Plans are in place for a combined 160MW solar and wind project with up to 40MWh of energy storage in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, while a smaller scale demonstration project experimenting with multiple technologies is being developed for Kerala.
Melbourne-headquartered mining giant BHP, in partnership with the Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI), has projected 500MW of potential capacity combining solar, wind and energy storage at its old North American mining sites.
India-based promoter of decentralised power Clean Energy Access Network (CLEAN) has issued a request for proposal (RfP) for lithium-ion technology providers to show how their solutions can aid mini grid and distributed renewable energy development in India.
News in brief from the week in energy storage around the world.
While lithium-ion is rapidly racing ahead to become the “de facto grid storage solution” and is the most popular technology choice by far, vendors of other types of batteries are also targeting the market, with varying degrees of success.
Europe’s ‘first commercial battery park’, a 5MWh lithium-ion battery system that was recently tripled in size to 15MWh, has been used to successfully restart a disconnected power grid in Germany.
Energy Renaissance is constructing a 1GWh per annum lithium-ion battery storage manufacturing plant at Darwin, in the Northern Territory of Australia, while CEFC has financed a 2Mtpa lithium concentrate mining project in Western Australia.
Orders for distributed energy storage and the rise of an electric mobility market have kick-started a battery assembly push in India.
The Renault-Nissan Alliance will build a 100MW battery storage project using its second-life EV batteries, according to media reports.
Tesla has announced the first programme to aggregate the capabilities of hundreds of its residential and commercial stationary storage systems in a partnership with Vermont utility Green Mountain Power.
Queensland-based developer SolarQ is planning to build a 350MW(ac) solar plant combined with a ground-breaking 4,000MWh of lithium-ion battery storage in the Gympie Region of Queensland, Australia.
Brisbane-based renewable energy investor Lyon Group will soon start building a AU$1 billion (US$767 million) solar-plus-storage farm in South Australia - the world’s largest.
The complexities of combining batteries and solar microgrids are explained by Sam Duby, who is co-founder and director of research and development at mini-grid technologies company SteamaCo Ltd and consults for TFE Consulting. TFE Consulting is a strategy consulting firm focusing on accelerating the energy transition in emerging markets and is active in Africa, India, Southeast Asia and Latin America.
News in Brief: Tesla’s Powerpack 2 is installed in a utility-scale project for SCE, Texan utility CPS opens EPC bids for a large-scale solar-plus storage project and Eguana and LG Chem expand their storage partnership.
Four makers of lithium-ion batteries have been sanctioned by the European Commission for anti-competitive practises, with three incurring fines totalling €166 million (US$176 million) after colluding to “avoid aggressive competition”.
A US state-backed organisation is partnering with the government of Singapore to build and test up to three energy storage systems using a variety of technologies on the island state.
A company offering solar-plus-storage systems for the residential market has introduced a set of controls that allow consumers to adapt to utility rates and legislative changes with the flick of a switch.
The Advanced Lead Acid Battery Consortium (ALABC) has set out a three-year research programme to improve the performance of lead batteries in energy storage and electric vehicles. It has called for investment of up to US$2 million per year from governments and research agencies to fund its studies, which will run through 2018.
US utility Southern California Edison (SCE) has selected energy storage manufacturer and developer Powin Energy, a subsidiary of Powin Corporation, to build a 2MW / 8MWh storage system for grid support and capacity services as a result of an emergency procurement call from the California Public Utilities Commission’s (CPUC).
Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) senior analyst Logan Goldie-Scot discusses with Energy-Storage.News drivers for the recent uptick in storage across the globe, as well as insights on why America has an ideal regulatory approach to storage technologies, the recent UK tender, and the potential of dynamic markets in Asia Pacific.
Korean battery provider Kokam is to develop a 36MW/13MWh energy storage system for South Korea’s largest utility Korea Electric Power Corporation (KEPCO).
Mercom Capital Group’s latest report showed how energy storage companies brought in US$125 million in venture capital (VC) funding in Q2 2016, double that of the previous quarter. Year-over-year funding this second quarter roughly matched last year’s Q2 output, which had US$126 million in 13 deals.
Lockheed Martin has told Energy-Storage.News that while the company wants its energy storage systems to support the adoption of renewable energy, its recently launched lithium-ion devices will focus on “commercial applications”.
Power firm AES India recently agreed to build the first large-scale battery-based energy storage project in India, working with consumer electronics and energy storage firm Panasonic India. Manish Kumar, managing director, energy storage, AES Corporation spoke to Energy-Storage.News to explain the potential of the Indian market and how the project will progress.
Texas-headquarted Mercom Capital Group recently released its Q1 2016 funding and M&A report for energy storage, smart grid and energy efficiency sectors. Mercom’s CEO and co-founder Raj Prabhu discusses the energy storage trends tracked in this quarter with Energy-Storage.News, especially in light of the drop in venture capital funding this quarter.
A trial project using 1.1MWh of lithium-ion battery storage to harness power from rooftop solar systems has been installed in the Western Australia suburb of Alkimos.