But many people may not be aware that there are many other sources of renewable energy currently in use around the world, all helping to counterbalance the enormous carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels. Small projects are turning to dirt and microbes, underground stores of liquid magma and even pedestrian footsteps to harvest energy that would otherwise be wasted.
Huawei (Shenzhen, China) has developed the world's first long-lifespan graphene-assisted Li-ion battery able to withstand high temperatures. Researchers at Watt Laboratory, part of Huawei's Central Research Institute, have used new graphene-based heat-resistant technologies that allow Li-ion batteries to remain functional in a 60°C environment, 10°C higher than the existing upper limit. This allows the graphene-assisted Li-ion batteries to operate twice as long as ordinary Li-ion batteries, potentially up to four years for batteries in infrastructure such as mobile phone basestations.
A soon-to-be-released study from a supercapacitor manufacturer claims lithium-ion batteries could be reaching their physical energy density limits, calling their future usefulness into question. Using a “first-principles analysis,” Wolfgang Mack, vice president of business development at Menlo Park-based Capacitor Sciences, argues lithium-ion technology has reached 87 percent of its commercially achievable cell limit for energy density. “The point of diminishing returns for the contemporary chemistries of lithium-ion batteries is evident,” he said. “To achieve the remaining 13 percent of the commercially achievable cell limits will be costly and slow, with limited returns on investments.”
Researchers at Stanford University have used artificial intelligence to identify over 20 solid electrolytes that could replace the volatile liquids currently used in batteries.
Axiom Exergy's president and co-founder Amrit Robbins spoke of "refrigeration batteries" as an energy storage solution for supermarkets. "We take a fundamentally different approach -- rather than sell stacks of batteries, we transform the world's cooling infrastructure into intelligent connected energy storage assets." Robbins notes his firm has "$6 million in sales...to major national supermarket chains." The firm has 13 employees and has raised more than $3.5 million in funding from investors including Element 8 Fund, Victory Capital, the MIT Angels, Propel(x), the Sierra Angels, Tesla CTO JB Straubel, and other undisclosed investors. "We are selling to grocery stores, and life is hard for these folks," said Robbins. They are plagued by razor-thin margins of about 1.3 percent over the last 10 years, according to the co-founder. "And they are spending more on energy -- about three times more energy per square foot -- than other average retailers. They are scrambling to reduce costs by just a few basis points -- and energy is a huge opportunity," he said. "Saving $30,000 on a utility bill is the same as selling an additional $1.5 million of groceries," Robbins added.
FreeWire CEO Arcady Sosinov's company is using "second-life" EV batteries to "reach a cost-competitive part of the market that other energy storage players typically cannot be competitive against," allowing them to "address new markets that have largely been ignored by other players." FreeWire provides "a clean and quiet alternative to diesel generators."
Battery prices have continued their stunning decline, with game-changing implications for electric vehicles (EVs), the electric grid, and the cage fight between renewables and natural gas. Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) reports that lithium-ion battery prices have fallen “by almost half just since 2014” and “electric cars are largely responsible.” Last year, BNEF called this “the miracle of Musk,” referring to Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla, which jump-started the stagnant EV business and whose gigafactory will keep putting downward pressure on battery costs. In 2013, the International Energy Agency estimated EVs would achieve cost parity with gasoline vehicles when battery costs hit $300 per kiloWatt-hour of storage capacity, which the IEA said would happen by 2020. That price point was in fact crossed last year, which is why both GM and Tesla announced they could deliver affordable (well below $40,000), long-range (200-plus miles) EVs.
BNEF’s analysis shows why that’s a game-changer
The $300 per kWh price point is also where lithium-ion batteries storing excess renewable generation start to get competitive against natural gas “peaker” power plants, which power on just for the morning and evening demand surge. “Three new plants in California show how lithium-ion storage is ready to power the grid,” Bloomberg reported Monday. “Any one of these projects would have been the largest battery storage facility ever built.”
When battery prices drop another 50 percent, which BNEF thinks will happen within a decade or so, batteries dominate the market.
CREDIT: BNEF
“Batteries capable of storing power at utility scale will be as widespread in 12 years as rooftop solar panels are now,” predicts BNEF. Over the next 25 years, small-scale battery storage will become a $250 billion market.
This in turn will drive “peak fossil fuels for electricity.” Bottom line: “Coal and gas will begin their terminal decline in less than a decade.” Similarly, EVs will likely drive peak oil demand in the 2020s, too.
It's hard enough convincing investors to trust advanced battery technology when it's the increasingly recognizable lithium-ion variety. New Jersey-based battery startup Eos has a different challenge: pitching a technology few have heard of,* because the company was the first to invent it. Its major tool in overcoming that challenge is price. Eos team members say they are already selling their system at $160 per kilowatt-hour for high-volume orders. That's the DC system cost, so it doesn't include inverters or installation, but it trounces the advanced battery competition and has raised many an eyebrow in the industry. A mind-blowing price captures customers' attention, but doesn't necessarily secure their trust. Eos has created a new energy storage technology the company calls zinc hybrid cathode. To build confidence in the product, the company has turned to established, recognizable companies to get the product to customers. Eos announced two of these in the week leading up to the DistribuTech Conference in San Diego.
Energy storage is set to grow 40 percent per year in developing markets, says a team of researchers at the World Bank Group. That growth will take the current installed base of around 2 gigawatts up to 80 gigawatts in less than a decade. And if certain rule changes are made, capacity increases could be higher than that. The findings were published in a new report from the International Finance Corporation and the Energy Sector Management Assistance Program, which are both part of the World Bank.
Three massive battery storage plants—built by Tesla, AES Corp., and Altagas Ltd.—are all officially going live in southern California at about the same time. Any one of these projects would have been the largest battery storage facility ever built. Combined, they amount to 15 percent of the battery storage installed planet-wide last year. Ribbons will be cut and executives will take their bows. But this is a revolution that’s just getting started, Tesla Chief Technology Officer J.B. Straubel said in an interview on Friday. “It’s sort of hard to comprehend sometimes the speed all this is going at,” he said. “Our storage is growing as fast as we can humanly scale it.”
Until recently, batteries were many times more expensive than natural gas “peaker” plants that fire up to meet surging demand in the evening and morning hours. But prices for lithium-ion batteries have fallen fast—by almost half just since 2014.
We don't think we've seen so many new battery technologies mentioned in one article, check it out:
Things are starting to change though, so we've collected all the best battery discoveries that could be with us soon. From over the air charging to super-fast 30-second re-charging, you could be seeing this tech in your gadgets sooner than you think.
Until recently, batteries were many times more expensive than natural gas “peaker” plants that fire up when supply falls (as when the wind dies down). The South Australia government’s current plan is to address its energy shortfall largely through the construction of a state-owned 250MW gas plant, along with A$75 million in grants and A$75 million in loans to help fund energy storage. A 400 MWh Tesla project with a price tag of $169 million should be very profitable for South Australia, achieving an internal rate of return of between 18 percent and 29 percent, according to BNEF calculations. That’s based on wholesale energy sales and revenue from additional high-value grid services that batteries are especially well suited to provide
California in need of some way to store a lot of short term power. Here's a Golden State "duck curve" story. Certainly not new to many, but I'd bet not to most.
'ArtM72' pid='80209' datel Wrote:California in need of some way to store a lot of short term power. Here's a Golden State "duck curve" story. Certainly not new to many, but I'd bet not to most. http://www.theenergycollective.com/cathe...ck-sinking
Interesting stuff Art, if storage is the solution to negative prices midday, than this might help:
One of the companies bidding for a 100-megawatt storage plant in South Australia is standing by claims that its technology could beat lithium-ion. Adelaide-based 1414 Degrees, named after silicon’s melting point (and formerly known as Latent Heat Storage), claims to have developed a molten silicon thermal energy storage system (TESS) that can store 500 kilowatt-hours of energy within a 70-centimeter cube. This is 36 times the capacity of a 14-kilowatt-hour Tesla Powerwall 2 lithium-ion battery, the company claims. 1414 Degrees says it could build a 10 megawatt-hour plant for around AUD $700,000 (USD $528,000), or a tenth of the price of a Tesla battery-based project.
