Tag:

batteries

Megawatt Energy Storage Projects Debut in Hawaii

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Texas-based Xtreme Power is one of the leaders of the energy storage world, designing and manufacturing large-scale solid-state energy storage and power management systems called Dynamic Power Resources for solar and wind power applications.

CEO Carlos Coe talked with CleanTechies about developments in the energy storage field.

CleanTechies: You have two energy storage projects in Hawaii.

Carlos Coe: The first project is on the island of Maui and it’s affiliated with the wind farm that’s on that island. And that project is a 1.5 megawatt project in size going on a 30 megawatt wind farm. So that project was put into service the middle part of last year and has been in service since then and has done very, very well.

CleanTechies: Any glitches?

04/28/2010 1 comment

Clean Transportation Energy Efficiency Renewable Energy

Energy Storage Breakthrough Only a ‘Couple Years Away’

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CleanTechies caught up with Maurice Gunderson, senior partner of energy and materials at CMEA Capital, for some energy storage perspectives.

CleanTechies: You were an investor in A123 Systems. When will bulk storage arrive?

Maurice Gunderson: Bulk storage needs a little bit of definition. The kind of thing that A123 is doing is here now, and that’s a very high power storage for grid stabilization. And that makes sense in a lot of parts of the country. I make a distinction between that and very large bulk energy storage, which is intended to store power for very long periods of time, such as from wind turbines, and then release it over relatively long periods of time.

So the answer is there’s no real good battery solutions yet, but there’s a lot of smart people and a lot of money working on the problem and we’re going to see things emerging here within the next few years. The really practical ways to do very large storage right now come down to pumped storage. If nature gives you a canyon and environmental considerations don’t stop you from damming it up, you can make a very nice pumped storage facility. But that only exists when it occurs naturally. So there’s not a lot of places where you can count on building out new capacity of that type.

04/27/2010 2 comments

Clean Transportation Renewable Energy

The Week in Clean-Tech News: Solar Water Heaters Spread; Electric Car Prices to Drop?

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Bubble, Bubble, Methane is Trouble: A vast storehouse of methane under the Arctic Ocean has perforated and is starting to leak, researchers disclosed. While scientists have long been preoccupied with methane release from permafrost on mainland Siberia, the underwater stores in the adjoining East Siberian Arctic Shelf are much larger, and the release of even a small fraction could lead to a dramatic increase in global warming. Methane is a greenhouse gas at least 25 times more powerful than CO2.

Now a Word from Our Other Gases: It was a promising week in the world of fuels. A Colorado startup revealed a solar concentrator that can vaporize biomass and make high-yield synthetic fuels. British scientists explored enzymes in the gut of a boat-eating bug that could break down straw or waste wood. Meanwhile, a California newbie called Transonic Combustion claims to have invented a fuel-injection system that could boost mileage of plain old gas by 50 percent. The company registered 64 miles to the gallon in recent test drives.

03/12/2010 1 comment

Clean Transportation Renewable Energy

Mission Motors Racing New Electric Motorcycle Against Time

written by Jared Friedman

“Absolutely awesome!” is how Jit Bhattacharya the COO of Mission Motors based in San Francisco, CA described a recent test run of their Mission One electric motorcycle. With Tesla already proving that an electric sports car can outperform its gas-powered predecessors, Mission Motors is seeking to show that electric motorcycles are every bit as capable at high-performance endeavors as their four wheeled counterparts.

12/22/2009 1 comment

Clean Transportation Renewable Energy

Chevrolet Volt — Keep Your Plug-In Hybrid Out Of The Sun!

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Just as your mileage varies by where and how you drive, so might the performance of the Chevrolet Volt plug-in hybrid’s batteries.

The batteries in the GM vehicle due out in a year (November 2010) will have at least 10 years of life, according to company representatives who briefed the media on Tuesday. But vehicle owners who live in temperate climates are likely to see their batteries last much longer.

11/18/2009 1 comment

Clean Transportation Renewable Energy

To EV or Not to EV, That Is The Question

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Some heavyweights who know a thing or two about transportation are having a pointed online debate about whether or not electric vehicles should receive support from the federal government.

Terry Tamminen, who was Secretary of the California Environmental Protection Agency under Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, threw down the gauntlet last month in an editorial in which he stated that “it’s time to dump the battery-powered car in the same policy landfill as corn-based ethanol.”

10/02/2009 0 comment

Clean Transportation

Why Stop at Converting Hybrid Vehicles?

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Converting hybrid vehicles — particularly the Prius and Ford Escape — into plug-in hybrids has become a profitable niche industry for a few specialty companies. But the net impact of this new mini-industry has been much greater by influencing consumer and industry opinions.

Promoting the technical feasibility of PHEVs has been a significant factor in the auto manufacturers’ decision to develop the dozens of plug-in and all-electric vehicles now scheduled for delivery in the next five years.

But the earliest and strongest voice promoting PHEVs isn’t happy with that limited success. Felix Kramer, the founder of CalCars.org, says that getting to a million electrified vehicles by 2015 won’t do nearly enough to address climate change and energy independence, and now he’s setting his sights on electrifying internal combustion engine vehicles. He’s clearly on to something.

09/28/2009 1 comment

Clean Transportation

IT Leaders Pave the Way for Electric Vehicles Towards a Smart Grid

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The arrival of electric vehicles onto a grid that is expanding its use of renewable power use provides many challenges for networking, communications, and resources management. Seasoned IT firms, viewing EVs as an integral part of the larger smart grid opportunity, are lining up to provide solutions that will enable renewable power and vehicles to help instead of hinder grid performance.

As referenced in my new research report for GigaOM IT and Networking Issues for the Electric Vehicle Market (subscription required), having companies like Cisco, IBM, GE and AT&T playing significant roles make sense because of their experience. Many of the challenges are strikingly similar to those faced when the Internet became a mainstream vehicle for business and commerce.

09/23/2009 0 comment

Clean Transportation

Electric Motor + Diesel Engine = Time for Diesel Hybrids?

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The combination of electric motors and diesel engines has worked well in locomotives and heavy trucks for years, but carmakers haven’t been successful in getting beyond the concept car stage for light duty vehicles. Five years after I started writing about the potential for diesel hybrids, the passenger vehicle market is still relatively quiet — but that at last may change.

The premium paid for diesel engines and additional cost of an electric motor has scared off auto manufacturers. However, the two powertrains have compelling complementary performance characteristics. For city driving, electric motors (powered by batteries that recapture energy from frequent braking) provide needed acceleration. Diesel engines thrive in comparison to gasoline engines when hauling heavy loads and maintaining highway speeds.

09/02/2009 1 comment

Clean Transportation

EV Manufacturers Got Government Money, Now They Need to Show Results

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The future prospects of companies involved in electric vehicles continue to be greatly influenced by the support (or lack thereof) from the federal government. This week the government handed out another $300 million in funding for alternative fuel programs to Clean Cities initiatives around the country.

Of the 25 Clean Cities initiatives that received funding, 10 involved electric vehicles or vehicle charging stations. These projects will provide much-needed income to companies that produce batteries, vehicles, and charging stations. During this tight economy, even small orders such as these can provide a life line to startup companies looking for capital, as well as boost investor confidence.

08/28/2009 0 comment

Clean Transportation Renewable Energy

Economic Stimulus Plan doesn’t quite stimulate battery research

written by Paul Manwell

The stimulus package has allocated somewhere in the neighborhood of $92 billion to “CleanTech” with approximately $300 million to hybrid vehicles, with an amazing $2 billion in grants for battery manufacturing. I realize the purpose of the stimulus is to jump-start the economy with near-term “shovel-ready” projects, but I don’t think longer-term investments we need to drive fossil fuel-free transportation – in particular, investment in battery technology research.

Batteries are the most costly component in hybrid and plug-in hybrid cars, adding ~85% of the incremental cost beyond traditional gas-powered cars. In addition, these costs make Plug-in hybrids and many electric cars economically inefficient for the consumer, often not paying back over the lifetime of the investment. Current battery chemistries yield prices of approximately $1200/kWh for sustained power, and to provide pay-back will require costs closer to $500/kWh.

The scaling benefits from additional manufacturing facilities will bring these costs down, however, raw materials are roughly 25% of current battery costs, so there is a limit to scale cost savings. There is still significant research and development needed to make these products economically neutral.

Searching the shovel-ready projects for “battery” only shows ~$15.7m in stimulus funding, and “fuel cell” received a slightly better influx of cash at $100m. But very little of this money is allocated towards motive battery or fuel cell research that will make a step-change difference in cost. Perhaps they have not made it into the database yet.

The $2 billion in grants plus $300m for hybrids will drive battery scale, however, I am not sure it will bring costs down enough to sustainably compete with fossil fuels.

02/18/2009 1 comment

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