Energy-Storage Startup LightSail Plots Long-Term Game Plan
Barbara Haislip for the Wall Street Journal: Few industries are more daunting for entrepreneurs these days than clean energy.
Developing the technology and hardware is expensive, and setbacks are common. Even if all goes well, getting a product to market can take a decade or more. Most venture-fund investors, meanwhile, want a quicker payout.
Danielle Fong, co-founder and chief scientist of LightSail Energy, is trying to keep investors happy while working toward some ambitious clean-energy goals. Her company’s aim, she says, “is to produce the world’s cleanest and most economical energy-storage system” through a technology that uses compressed air to store energy from the grid. LightSail’s technology will do this more efficiently than other solutions, Ms. Fong says, by capturing some of the excess heat that comes when compressing air. “Until now, this was wasted, reducing efficiency,” she says.
Founded in 2009, Berkeley, Calif.-based LightSail has raised $70 million from several investors, including Bill Gates, Peter Thiel,Khosla Ventures and the French energy giant Total. Cont'd...
Apple leftovers key for future energy storage
By Tereza Pultarova for E&T: German researchers have developed a new carbon-based active material that can be manufactured from apple leftovers and used to build better energy storage systems.
The apple-based material can be used as the negative electrode in sodium-ion batteries, which are currently being researched as a more environmentally friendly and cheaper alternative to lithium-ion batteries.
Instead of energy-intensive lithium mining, which frequently damages the environment, battery manufacturers in future could be using organic waste to make batteries.
In tests, the new material discovered by researchers from the Helmholtz Institute Ulm of Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, has demonstrated ‘excellent electrochemical properties’, allowing the researchers to carry out 1000 charge and discharge cycles during which the apple-based battery demonstrated high stability as well as capacity. Cont'd...
Fuel Cell Industry In India Needs A Revival
There is no denying to the fact that initiatives are good, but they have been happening in smaller fragments and over large intervals of time. Therefore, it calls for more investment into research and development into the fuel cell sector.
Low-cost energy storage for power grid can be found in your Water Heater
By David Shaffer for Star Tribune: The least-expensive battery to store energy from the electric power grid may be sitting in homeowners’ basements — the electric water heater.
That is the surprising finding of research released Wednesday by the cooperative power industry, including Maple Grove-based Great River Energy, and an environmental group.
Customers at many utilities already save money by heating water at night, taking advantage of low, off-peak electric rates. It requires a special electric water heater that holds a day’s worth of household water, but offers long-term savings.
Now, a study by the Brattle Group, an economic consulting firm, says that the nation’s 50 million residential electric water heaters can address bigger challenges on the power grid, such as storing intermittent renewable energy from wind farms and solar arrays. Cont'd...
Boeing delivers fuel cell energy storage system to U.S. Navy
Ryan Maass for UPI: Boeing has delivered its reversible solid oxide fuel cell, for generating clean electricity, to the U.S. Navy for testing.
The fuel cell system is designed to generate, compress and store hydrogen from renewable sources such as wind and solar to produce zero-emissions electricity.Boeing's delivery to the Navy follows 16 months of development.
The technology is capable of both producing and storing energy. The first unit was commissioned on the Southern California power grid prior to its installation on the Navy's 'microgrid' for further testing.
"This fuel cell solution is an exciting new technology providing our customers with a flexible, affordable and environmentally progressive option for energy storage and power generation," Boeing Advanced Technology Programs director Lance Towers said.
Boeing officials say they were able to develop the fuel cell using their experience with the energy systems used for their unmanned undersea vehicles. Cont'd...
Californians Are Getting Paid To Install Awesome Energy Storage Systems
SGIP stands for Self Generation Incentive Program, a way to motivate consumers to use alternative energy sources to generate and store their own electricity. The SGIP pays energy storage users over a dollar per watt.
AltEnergyMag.com - Special Tradeshow Coverage of Solar Power PV Conference & Expo
Solar Power PV Conference & Expo 2016 will be held from February 24th - 25th in Boston. This AltEnergyMag
How One Energy Producer Uses IT Workload Automation to Solve Energy Pricing Challenges
Because weather conditions-precipitation, wind and sun in particular-can have a major impact on both production and demand for any renewable energy producer, Statkraft pays unusually close attention to historical and predictive weather data.
Advancing Solar Storage Solutions
As battery storage solutions advance and become more available, our reliance on fossil fuels will decrease and grid reliability will increase, putting us on the right track to a sustainable future.
Orison Plug-And-Play Energy Storage System Live On Kickstarter
Orison, an energy storage company, announced today that the first true plug-and-play energy storage system is now available for pre-order on Kickstarter. Orison powers homes and businesses to reduce energy costs, provide backup energy during blackouts, and contribute to a clean energy future. The Orison Kickstarter Campaign can be found at: http://kck.st/1Kr9Zn5
Orison envisions a future with abundant, clean, and affordable energy for all. The networked, distributed energy storage solution gives consumers control so they can store energy from any electricity source, including grid or solar power, to access energy whenever it's needed. When powered by the grid, it stores energy when utility rates are low to power homes and businesses when rates are high. If connected to solar, Orison allows consumers to locally store the energy they produce so that it will not be sold at a loss to the utility. By localizing energy distribution, Orison helps to save money and reduce peak demand. Full Press Release:
The Two Things To Note In The DOE's Solar + Storage Initiative
Michael Kanellos for Forbes: The Department of Energy doled out $18 million in grants this week as part of an effort to drive down the cost of solar plus storage down to less than 14 cents a kilowatt hour. The DOE, under its SunShot program, has long had a goal of driving down the cost of solar alone to 6 cents per kWh by 2020. So far, the program has hit its milestones.
Grants recipients include Austin Energy, Carnegie Mellon University, the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) and Aquion Energy, among others.
The DOE regularly gives out grants, but the latest program is somewhat interesting because:
First, that’s a really low price for storage. Utility-scale solar, generally cheaper than residential solar, without storage delivered power for 14 cents a kilowatt hour in 2014. The cost of batteries, however, has been declining rapidly. Ten years ago, batteries progressed slowly compared to other electronic devices: Tesla Motors TSLA +0.50% co-founder and CTO J.B. Straubel was famous for noting that the performance of batteries doubled every decade, versus the roughly two year cycle for semiconductor. Cont'd...
Optimising Energy Storage for Renewable Energy Security
Battery energy storage systems (ESSs) are becoming well established to help the grid integration of solar photovoltaic (PV) and wind energy, particularly in remote and island communities. It is important to understand the different roles that energy storage can play, including controlling ramp rates, smoothing, shaping, peak shaving and frequency regulation.
Most Popular Articles for 2015 - Did some of them predict the future?
Smart Homes, Robotics, Automation, Unmanned Vehicles, Solar and Wind Energy. Regardless of where you work or what you do, these topics are affecting your life and will continue to do so in the future.
Liquid Cooled High Power Li-ion Battery System
Using battery systems for peak shaving is highly beneficial; enabling a constant load on the engine ultimately leads to high efficiency and energy saving at the engine level.
Businesses Bank on Fuel Cell Reliability to Achieve Sustainability Goals
As the business case becomes more apparent - with fuel cells delivering both economic and environmental value - the list of corporate customers continues to grow.
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