It’s easy to become discouraged about cleantech when headlines focus on one company after another that fails to make it work. Frequently the issue is not technology, but rather management, the supply chain, or the business model. Cleantech companies often have the added burden of creating value where there was none before. Being visionary is riskier than
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energy storage
Conermex, one of the largest solar and wind power companies in Mexico, predicts that Mexico will double their capacity of solar within 2012, from 6 to 12 MW.
Mexico’s National Solar Energy Association (ANES) says that Mexico could possibly generate all their electricity with solar power in the future.
Isentropic is a UK company that has developed an energy storage system called Pumped Heat Electricity Storage (PHES).
Isentropic owns several international and U.S. patents and applications. U.S. Application Publication No. 2010/0257862 (’862 Application) describes and claims the PHES technology.
“Fast” DC electric vehicle chargers that can charge up to 80 percent of a battery electric vehicle (BEV) in under 20 minutes are starting to sprout up in the U.S. Consumers are expected to be willing to pay up to the price of a movie ticket to wait minutes instead of hours to charge a vehicle.
New research at Concordia University is bringing the world one step closer to cleaner energy. It is now possible to extend the length of time a battery like enzyme can store energy from seconds to hours, as shown in a study published in the Journal of The American Chemical Society. Concordia Associate Professor László Kálmán — along with his colleagues
By spending years in the flywheel industry, Jim Fiske learned a great deal about grid-scale energy storage and its true requirements. After determining that flywheels were not the best option, he and the investor of his flywheel company founded Gravity Power. Gravity Power’s technology has the potential to change energy storage worldwide.
Efficient energy storage is key because we need to be able to access power when the sun is not out and the wind is not blowing.
A recent TED talk delved into this subject. The lecture was delivered by MIT’s Donald Sadoway, who explains in plain English how large-scale batteries that store renewable energy work.
About one fifth of the world’s population lacks access to electricity. It is one of biggest economic obstacles for people in developing countries, but one that could mean opportunities for a clean energy beginning with alternative energy.
One of the most promising aspects of energy storage is that it’s used to make an existing system more efficient. If you think of the grid as the system, then energy storage can help make generation, transmission, distribution, and even customer energy use more efficient.
How many different systems are there? The grid is the
Our electricity system is designed around central station, dispatchable (i.e. they turn on at the flip of a switch) generators. Transitioning to a system that is principally powered by renewable energy, many of which have variable production profiles, will require changes.
Green Patent Acquisitions: Private Equity Firm Snaps Up Beacon Power’s Flywheels
written by Walter Wang
Beacon Power is a Massachusetts company that makes flywheel-based energy storage systems.
Rockland Capital, a private equity firm, recently purchased Beacon Power, including a Stephentown, New York, flywheel plant project. The purpose of the project is to allow excess
This month’s issue of Wired magazine includes a long feature, written by Washington Post national environmental reporter Juliet Eilperin, headlined “Why the Clean Tech Boom Went Bust.” (Disclosure: I’m a contributing editor at Wired, and Eilperin is an acquaintance.) The story, which joins a lengthening list of obits for the cleantech industries, has a certain
Greentech Media recently reported that Southern California electric vehicle startup Coda Automotive (Coda) launched a battery business called Coda Energy, which will enter the grid-scale energy storage market.
Coda’s patent portfolio offers a window into the
Renewable energy such as solar has a basic problem: No sun , no power. In order to make it more usable the Power must be stored for off peak use when the sun does not shine. Batteries though die when repeatedly recharged. Stanford researchers have developed part of better battery, a new electrode