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.
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.
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.
