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Author Topic: Batteries  (Read 16580 times)

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AGelbert

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Batteries
« on: November 21, 2013, 02:49:24 pm »
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! 

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.)



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. 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

7200 Wisconsin Avenue | 10th Floor | Bethesda, MD | 20814-7227
Main: 1-301-825-8910 | Fax: 1-301-825-8914 | www.pdenergy.com
http://www.pdenergy.com/news-051612-isthatonions.php

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AGelbert

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Re: Batteries
« Reply #1 on: December 13, 2013, 11:20:57 pm »
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.”


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


http://cleantechnica.com/2013/12/13/doe-energy-storage-report-praised-esa/#Xq7OgZhkRywZgZM2.99
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AGelbert

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Re: Batteries
« Reply #2 on: December 13, 2013, 11:42:23 pm »
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. 


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.

http://reneweconomy.com.au/2013/japanese-energy-giants-rush-storage-solar-booms-58508
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AGelbert

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Re: Batteries
« Reply #3 on: January 23, 2014, 03:40:24 pm »

Sweet Science: Researcher Develops Energy-dense Sugar Battery 


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. 

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)! 

He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Re: Batteries
« Reply #4 on: January 23, 2014, 04:15:39 pm »
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.







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, 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.

http://blog.rmi.org/blog_2014_01_22_batteries_to_bolster_solar
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AGelbert

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Musk Says Renewable Energy Shift to Bring ‘Strife’ for Utilities   ;D
 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

http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2014/02/musk-says-renewable-energy-shift-to-bring-strife-for-utilities
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AGelbert

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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

http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2014/06/the-wide-appeal-of-batteries-for-the-renewable-energy-market?cmpid=WNL-Friday-June6-2014
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AGelbert

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Re: Batteries
« Reply #7 on: July 10, 2014, 05:20:26 pm »
Lithium or Vanadium:     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   


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.   


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.
 


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! ). Of course said math challenged fossil fueler whiners will claim that the POOR efficiency factor of PV negates all that 23,000 potential TW/year figure.  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! 
 




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


And of course there are OTHER RENEWABLE ENERGY technologies, out there that will help at night...

                             



He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Tesla Breaks Ground for Its Gigafactory in Nevada
« Reply #8 on: August 04, 2014, 10:20:33 pm »
Tesla Breaks Ground for Its Gigafactory in Nevada
James Nash and Alan Ohnsman, Bloomberg
http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2014/08/tesla-breaks-ground-for-its-gigafactory-in-nevada
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Re: Batteries
« Reply #9 on: August 19, 2014, 10:19:02 pm »
Grid Battery Storage: Four Reasons to Invest
The emerging battery storage market will present new opportunities for investors.
Richard Heap, A Word About Wind

http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2014/07/grid-battery-storage-four-reasons-to-invest


He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Re: Batteries
« Reply #10 on: October 29, 2014, 04:07:07 pm »
From Ashes to Energy: $1 Billion Alevo Battery Factory Surges On the Scene

Taking over an old cigarette factory in North Carolina, Alevo announces new battery technology and 3.5 million square feet of factory space to make its new GridBank batteries in.
 Jennifer Runyon, Chief Editor, RenewableEnergyWorld.com 
 October 28, 2014  |  7 Comments  (at link)


New Hampshire --  Having worked in stealth mode for the past 10 years, German researchers and serial entrepreneur Jostein Eikeland have developed a new battery chemistry that they claim is non-combustible and highly efficient. The batteries, say Alevo, have at their core a new inorganic electrolyte that eliminates “both the risk of combustion and explosion and massively reduces the debilitating effects of charging cycles.”

According to the company Alevo has demonstrated in testing that its batteries can be charged up to 40,000 times with no signs of increase in internal resistance.  :o    This testing included over-charging followed by deep discharging.

The technology will be manufactured into what the company calls a “GridBank,” which is a large container-sized 2-MW (1 MWh) utility scale battery that in conjunction with the company’s battery management system, which it calls Alevo Analytics, will work to make the grid more efficient and smooth out fluctuations in energy caused by intermittent renewables like wind power and solar PV.  “What this means in practice is lower costs to the utilities, smaller bills for the consumer and a reduction in greenhouse gases per megawatt that will help cost-effective coal-fired generation achieve the EPA Clean Power limits,” said Eikeland in a statement.

GridBanks will be manufactured in Concord, North Carolina in a former Phillip-Morris cigarette factory, which is opening today. The manufacturing plant will create 2,500 jobs at the outset and will employ as many as 6,000 people when (and if) it reaches peak production capacity. Alevo says that the factory will be able to produce up to 480 GridBanks in the first year of production, set to begin in 2015. The company said it will be deploying and commissioning production lines that will produce 40 GridBanks per month by July 2015.

The manufacturing plant sits on 2,023 acres, 1,500 of which is green field, which along with Duke Energy’s 38-MW substation on the property mean that the existing access to natural gas, water, sewer and fiber all exceed Alevo’s manufacturing requirements.

Alevo’s heritage in battery technology dates back to 2004. The past decade has seen continued investment in the core battery technology and in software development of the Alevo Analytics Suite. The investment in the combined research and development, together with the acquisition and fit-out of the manufacturing supply chain, represents a start-up investment of over $1 billion that has been met through private investments and equity funds.

The company is also announcing that it has two national level contracts. Alevo and China-ZK, a 51 percent private funded body that coordinates energy infrastructure in China, have signed a strategic agreement to promote and commercialize Alevo’s technology products and services in China. Meanwhile, in Turkey, Alevo has signed a joint venture distribution partnership deal with TSG and RBM.

Today, grid frequency is maintained through fossil fuel plants and demand reduction programs, explains the company. Frequency regulation through energy storage enables a higher efficiency in the grid, as over produced electricity can be stored and then discharged when the frequency is dropping. Alevo claims that its technology will reduce 30 percent of the energy “waste” on the grid.

RenewableEnergyWorld.com will continue to offer updates on Alevo and its new technology in the coming months.

Lead image: Aerial view of Alevo's Concord, NC manufacturing facility. Credit: Alevo. (at link)
http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2014/10/from-ashes-to-energy-1-billion-alevo-battery-factory-surges-one-the-scene#comment-136502
 

« Last Edit: October 29, 2014, 09:01:44 pm by AGelbert »
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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What is a gridbank?



GridBanks are energy reservoirs that store and deliver grid-scale electricity on demand.


•Stores electricity when too much is produced

•Delivers electricity when too little is produced 

•Balances the transmission so the voltage and frequency are constant – fluctuation creates costly and damaging disturbances

•Allows fossil fuel power-plants to operate more efficiently – reducing pollution and cost

•Enables smooth renewables integration 




Gridbank is:

THE SOLUTION — Deployment of GridBanks tied to the electric grid across the globe solves these myriad challenges. GridBanks will cut the real cost of electricity from generation to transmission and delivery, while gradually transitioning supply from fossil fuel to renewables.


http://alevo.com/gridbank/what-is-a-gridbank/




He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Re: Batteries
« Reply #12 on: October 29, 2014, 09:16:25 pm »

ALEVO BATTERY TECHNOLOGY (ABT)

At the center of the GridBank is the Alevo Battery.

ABT… Safe. Robust. Reliable.

Alevo Battery Technology brings the first inorganic lithium battery to the commercial marketplace, bringing unprecedented attributes to the energy storage market. Due to its inorganic nature, the battery is non-flammable (Safety) and creates minimal internal resistance (Long Life).
   


SAFE
•Alevo batteries are non-flammable and non-combustible
•CO UN Certification


ROBUST

•High discharge power rate and high pulse current conducive to electric grid applications
•Fully dischargeable, the only lithium battery that offers 100% Depth of Discharge (DOD)  :o  ;D
•Highly durable – can tolerate extreme temperature swings
•No calendric aging and can be stored in a complete discharged state  ;D


RELIABLE
•Extreme long life cycle
Constant internal resistance  ;D over cycle life
Constant power  ;D over cycle life

http://alevo.com/gridbank/alevo-battery-technology-abt/

He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

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Re: Batteries
« Reply #13 on: October 30, 2014, 04:03:40 pm »
Alevo Planning Battery Plant in Former Cigarette Factory

By Ehren Goossens  Oct 27, 2014 6:28 PM ET     

Alevo Group SA, a Swiss startup, is planning a battery factory to produce energy-storage systems for utilities to manage intermittent power supplies from renewable sources such as wind and sunlight.

The company paid $68.5 million for a former cigarette factory in Concord, North Carolina and expects to begin production next year, according to a statement today. It will initially make about 40 GridBank systems a month, shipping containers packed with lithium-ion batteries that can hold about 2 megawatts.


The growing use of renewable energy   ;D will become a challenge for utilities that must maintain a constant flow of electricity. That will create demand for storage technologies that can help balance supply and demand, said Jostein Eikeland, Martigny, Switzerland-based Alevo’s chairman  , chief executive officer and largest shareholder.

“We saw there was an opening in the market and saw the opportunity to be a shock absorber for the grid,” he said in an interview.

The 3.5 million square-foot (325,000 square-meter) former Philip Morris International Inc. factory will employ about 500 people in its first year, eventually expanding to 6,000 workers, he said.

Alevo’s 40-foot GridBank systems can be charged in about 30 minutes and the batteries can be charged and discharged more than 40,000 times, Eikeland said. Alevo is working with China-ZK International Energy Investment Co. to sell its systems in China and to build a manufacturing plant there. The company has similar sales and leasing agreements with companies in Turkey.

Alevo is one of several companies   ;D seeking to establish a foothold in energy-storage. The electric car manufacturer Tesla Motors Inc. is building a $5 billion plant in Nevada with Panasonic Corp. The facility, which has been called the Gigafactory will produce batteries for its vehicles.

To contact the reporter on this story: Ehren Goossens in New York at egoossens1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Reed Landberg at landberg@bloomberg.net Will Wade, Steven Frank

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-10-27/alevo-planning-battery-plant-in-former-cigarette-factory.html


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Re: Batteries
« Reply #14 on: October 30, 2014, 04:28:22 pm »
Stealthy Norwegian entrepreneur aims to revolutionize U.S. energy storage 


By Nichola Groom

Mon Oct 27, 2014 5:21pm EDT  Jostein Eikeland, a Norwegian entrepreneur with a mixed record of success, is hoping to jolt the world of energy storage.

On Tuesday, Eikeland's latest venture, Alevo, will unveil a battery that he says will last longer and ultimately cost far less than rival technologies.
The technology, which is meant to store excess electricity generated by power plants, has been developed by Eikeland in secret for a decade.

"We've been very stealth," Eikeland said in a telephone interview. "We didn't know if we were going to succeed."

Martigny, Switzerland-based Alevo Group is gearing up to start manufacturing batteries next year at a massive former cigarette plant near Charlotte, North Carolina, that it says will employ 2,500 people within three years.

Eikeland, 46, said Alevo, named for the inventor of the battery, Alessandro Volta, has $1 billion from anonymous Swiss investors and has taken no state funding or incentives.

Alternately brash and self-deprecating, Eikeland did not shy away from discussing his up-and-down past. He founded software company

TeleComputing Inc during the dot-com boom, helped take it public on the Oslo stock exchange, then left in 2002 after the tech bubble burst.
He later invested heavily in and took the helm of Sweden-based auto parts manufacturer, TMG International, which went bankrupt in 2008. Broke, he was forced to sell his lavish homes to pay his taxes, according to media reports that were confirmed by representatives for Alevo.

After TMG, Eikeland spent a few years investing in software and battery technologies, many of which he admits failed.

"I know how hard it is to lose eight of your 10 fingers," he said. "I wish I had somebody else to blame."  8)

EASIER SAID THAN DONE   ::)

Claims of technological breakthroughs from unfamiliar companies are common in the world of green technology. Many startups fizzle out before they achieve mass production. Among the recent high-profile flameouts: battery maker A123 and solar panel maker Solyndra.

"One billion dollars is a colossal amount of capital raised for any clean-tech company," said Raymond James analyst Pavel Molchanov, who said he is not familiar with Alevo. "It doesn't mean it's going to be a smashing success."

Typically in high-tech manufacturing, companies use pilot projects to prove their technology to investors and potential customers before ramping up.

That's not how Eikeland is proceeding.


"Building as big as we did, it might seem a little bit risky," said Eikeland, who described himself as "a controversial guy." 

Producing on a mass scale will make Alevo's technology cost- effective from the start, Eikeland said. The high cost of grid storage has prevented it from being deployed more widely.

Eikeland plans to deliver 200 megawatts of batteries - roughly enough to power 100,000 homes - into the U.S. market next year and is in talks with big utilities, which he hopes will become customers.

Alevo's approach stands in stark contrast to the public announcement last month of Tesla Motors Inc's planned $5 billion factory in Nevada, which will make batteries for electric cars. Tesla says its plant will employ 6,500 people by 2020. It will receive more than $1 billion of state incentives.

"Building a $1 billion facility in stealth mode is definitely unusual," said Dan Reicher, executive director of the Steyer-Taylor Center for Energy Policy and Finance at Stanford University. Reicher, a former green technology investor, said he was not familiar with Alevo or its technology.

State and county officials in North Carolina confirmed that Alevo has not sought any business incentives.

PACKING A LOT OF POWER

The company has created what it calls GridBanks, which are shipping containers full of thousands of battery cells. Each container can deliver 2 megawatts of power, enough to power up to 1,300 homes for an hour.

The batteries use lithium iron phosphate and graphite as active materials and an inorganic electrolyte - what Eikeland called the company's "secret sauce" - that extends longevity and reduces the risk of burning. They can be charged and discharged over 40,000 times, the company said.

That is about four times as much as rival batteries,   :o   ;D said Sam Wilkinson, who follows energy storage for IHS Technology. Wilkinson, who said he was briefed by Alevo on its plans, said that if the batteries work as promised they will constitute a technological leap.

Grid storage has become critical as more renewables are introduced into the world’s power supply. For instance, batteries can store power generated during windy nights to use during the day when the wind may not be blowing, or can extend solar power into the hours after the sun goes down.

The industry is expected to grow to $19 billion by 2017 from just $200 million in 2012, according to research firm IHS CERA.

Eikeland holds several patents in the United States related to battery technology. The company will compete with established manufacturers like Samsung and France's Saft as well as a handful of privately held startups like Enervault and Primus Power.

(Additional reporting by Gwladys Fouche in Oslo; Editing by Eric Effron and Douglas Royalty)

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/10/27/us-energy-storage-eikeland-idUSKBN0IG29T20141027

Agelbert Comment: Alevo knows EXACTLY what it is doing. Had they been open about the battery breakthrough, the fossil fuel fascists would have brought the bought and paid for Corrupt Court System in to INVENT all sorts of "environmental hazard" reasons to kneecap the factory. Yeah, they will try that now anyway but Alevo has done its HOMEWORK with the state officials that want jobs. The fossil fuelers are NOT going to burn THIS factory down by hook or by crook!  8)  ;D

Alevo, Go Bankrupt the Fossil Fuelers!

 
« Last Edit: October 30, 2014, 11:33:23 pm by AGelbert »
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

 

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