Germany-headquartered battery manufacturer Varta will receive €300 million (US$338 million) of government funding to develop large format lithium-ion cells, which has been deemed a project of potentially strategic interest for Europe.
Dr Prof John Goodenough, one of the three inventors of the modern lithium-ion battery has congratulated Contemporary Amperex Technology Co Ltd (CATL) as it breaks ground on a new laboratory in China to expand its research and development (R&D) into novel energy technologies.
While the performance of lithium batteries has increased tremendously, there's still room for improvement to lower cost, increase sustainability and maximise their impact on decarbonisation, says Marcos Ierides, consultant and materials expert at innovation consultancy Bax & Company.
Construction looks set to begin this year on a factory building flow batteries, as a joint venture (JV) formed by German tech company Schmid Group and Saudi Arabian investment company Nusaned closed the transaction to seal its partnership.
Accelerator selected the maker of an organic flow battery among a group of “startups with the potential to dramatically alter the future global energy landscape”.
Hydrogen and vehicle-to-grid (V2G) technologies are among those vying to be considered the next big innovation in energy storage, a panel of experts has concluded.
This week's news-in-brief stories come from across Solar Media's publishing channels.
News in brief from around the world in energy storage.
Recommendations made to the government of India as it prepares to publish its union budget for 2020 from industry group India Energy Storage Alliance (IESA) include measures to support both the upstream of industry and the downstream of clean energy deployment.
Manz AG has signed an agreement with China’s Shenzhen Yinghe Technology for strategic cooperation in lithium-ion cell and module production.
A legislative package for energy storage research and development has been welcomed by the US Energy Storage Association after receiving approval from the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.
The way the industry talks about batteries needs to change, SolarEdge founder Lior Handelsman has said, arguing that knowing the number of cycles of charge and discharge a battery can perform in its lifetime is essentially “meaningless”.
India is looking at gravity-based energy storage to take advantage of the technology's short response times and flexibility when it comes to grid integration of clean energy sources.
24M, a startup battery company founded as a spin-off from MIT, claims it has made a breakthrough in creating semi-solid lithium-ion battery cells with an energy density exceeding 350Wh per kg.
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.
Automotive giant Toyota and electronics firm Panasonic have announced a joint venture which will look to lead the field in EV battery technology.
BIRD Energy, a foundation jointly created by the US Department of Energy (DoE) and Israel’s Ministry of Energy (MoE) will invest around half the amount required to fund US$12 million of solar, storage, energy efficiency and microgrid projects in Israel.
UK-based power, heating and cooling equipment manufacturer Aggreko is investing £33 million in research and development.
News in brief from around the world of energy storage.
India-based solar manufacturer and EPC player Vikram Solar has signed a collaboration agreement with the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA), while at the founding ceremony of the International Solar Alliance (ISA).
The real-world performance of batteries paired with “Hywind” - the world’s first floating wind farm - will be analysed by the wind project’s owners, Masdar and Statoil.
New Zealand’s small handful of advanced energy storage systems will be added to with the NZ$2 million (US$1.45 million) trial deployment of a grid-scale Tesla Powerpack 2 by energy generator and retailer Mercury.
While energy storage can be considered “critical” to Australia’s transformation to a distributed, low carbon energy mix, a lack of investment and planning for the technology could have negative consequences for the network.
Two US Senators introduced a bill in Congress at the beginning of this week that would require the national Secretary of Energy to establish research and demonstration programmes and deployment strategies for energy storage, if passed.
In the UK, a new, quarter of a billion-pound innovation competition for batteries has been launched, while plans for overhaul of the energy sector promising a “determined, joined-up, far-sighted and deliberate approach from government” appear to have been met with relish by the industry. Consultant Robert Ede goes beyond headlines to look at what this might really mean in practical terms.
Louisville Gas and Electric and Kentucky Utilities (LG&E and KU), arms of US firm PPL Corporation, have developed a research centre for energy storage at a power plant in Kentucky.
O&M analytics software provider QOS Energy has delivered its energy management system to an R&D project run by French aggregator Sun’R Smart Energy’s examining grid integration of renewables using pumped hydro storage.
South Africa’s main utility Eskom said it has identified a need for as much as 2,000MW of energy storage on its networks, and has opened a testing facility to find the technologies most suitable.
Projects that demonstrate how energy storage can benefit a wide range of stakeholders and the electric grid can compete for US$15.5 million of funding from the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA).
Powin Energy will supply a 30kW/40kWh battery system for the University of Washington’s Clean Energy Institute.