Solar Power International 2015 underway in Anaheim, CA
This years show will place September 14 -17 in Anaheim, CA. Over 15,000 + visitors are expected in attendance to learn about the latest technology innovations, financing models, business best practices and policy and incentive programs that are contributing to the growth of the solar industry. With over 600 exhibitors from 75 countries on display showcasing the entire system of solar technology and advances in solar cell and module technology, balance of system components, solar heating and cooling and energy storage.
Check out Solar Power International Newspage for all the News and Announcements from this years show. Also stay tuned for our SPI Tradeshow Report.
Tesla And Panasonic Fight "Battery War" In Europe
By Vlad Tverdohleb for CruxialCIO: Panasonic Corp is the producer of lithium-ion batteries for Tesla Motors Inc’s cars. However, Panasonic is now preparing to begin selling batteries that power homes in Europe. Its first market is Germany, where homeowners are even given greater incentives to switch to clean electricity generated by solar-power devices.
Thus, Panasonic’s push into international markets with home batteries is putting the Japanese company into direct competition with Tesla, its flagship customer. In May, the American company unveiled a suite of batteries to store electricity for businesses and homes.
Panasonic plans to move later to France, the U.K. and other European markets. Laurent Abadie, Panasonic Europe chief executive officer, declared on Wednesday, Sept. 2, in an interview at the IFA International Consumer Electronics Show in Berlin, that the company has not decided yet when it would start sales in Europe. Cont'd...
How floating turbines could harness the awesome power of the tides
Ross Jennings for The Conversation: The world’s tides contain enough energy to power the entire UK’s electricity consumption. And, since it effectively harnesses the moon’s constant and predictable gravitational pull, tidal power overcomes one of renewable energy’s classic problems – the fact you never know quite how much sun, wind or rain to expect. Now, underwater windmills positioned just below the ocean surface could be a major breakthrough for tidal power.
Costly technology and inaccessible locations have thus far held things back. Large, heavy and expensive turbines mounted on the seabed have been developed, but these are aimed at commercial scale developments. Tidal power needs its equivalent of the rooftop solar panel.
Imagine then a wind turbine, but underwater, and not fixed to the seabed – these so-called “mobile floating turbines” are a cheaper and more adaptable alternative to big, fixed developments. Most floating turbines look something like this: Cont'd...
Lead Battery Recycling
Why it is the most successful reclamation system on the planet.
Is Hydrogen The Key To Clean Fuel?
Essentially what we do is take hydrogen-rich materials and combine them with a polymer to make a plastic-like material that we can extrude or press into pellets or rods.
Plug-and-play battery seeks to upstage Tesla
By Morgan Lee for the San Diego Union Tribune: It looks like a simple floor lamp, or a sleek picture frame on the wall. Inside lies a tantalizing future for household energy storage -- a 2 kilowatt-hour battery that plugs into a standard wall outlet and can keep an electrical circuit hot for several hours or more if a power outage strikes.
The unproven concept for a plug-in-play battery was introduced Thursday by San Diego-based Orison during a forum at the University of California San Diego. Len Hering, executive director of the Center for Sustainable Energy, praised the 2-year-old startup's efforts in a news release.
Orison CEO and co-founder Eric Clifton, drawing on seven years of experience in green technology startups, believes the battery tower and wall unit can play a prominent role in the emerging Internet of Things, providing the energy-storage equivalent of the Nest smart thermostat.
"The way we look at it, we are the Nest of the energy industry," he said.
Clifton believes that other early household battery entries -- most notably the Powerwall from electric car maker Tesla Motors -- miss the mark on bringing energy storage to the masses.
Tesla's hefty home battery has to be professionally mounted and hardwired into household circuity, potentially involving inspections and permits.
With Orison's batteries, you don't have to own a home, or even live in one, Clifton said. The batteries fit in with an apartment dweller in Manhattan. Cont'd...
Super Battery Technology - High Capacity Cathode
Rather than relying upon conventional cathodes that use lithium-ion intercalation chemistry, an inherently slow process, we exploit the fast redox-reaction properties of our polymer to enable rapid charge and discharge.
Tesla already has reservations for $1bn worth of energy storage
Tesla has taken 100,000 reservations for its Powerpack and Powerwall battery products, worth approximately $1bn, according to founder Elon Musk.
Speaking on the company’s quarterly earnings call, Musk said Tesla had taken reservations (non-binding agreements) which led him to believe the company would sell $50m of storage in the fourth quarter of 2015, and up to $500m in both 2016 and 2017.
Musk said: "If you just take the reservations that have been made thus far, it's well over $1 billion worth of Powerpacks and Powerwalls. And that's with no marketing, no advertising, no sales force to speak of, really, we're not trying to sell it".
Tesla chief technology officer Jeffrey Straubel, who was also on the call, said that around 70% of the reservations were for the larger 1MW Powerpack system, which is focused at commercial users and large-scale energy generators. Cont'd...
Kickstarter Projects August 2015
Here are a few alternative energy crowd funding projects that you may find interesting.
Norway Could Provide 20,000MW of Energy Storage to Europe
Mike Stone for GTM: Norway has a lot of hydroelectric plants: a total of 937 of them, which provide a population of 5 million with around 98 percent of its electricity. In fact, the Scandinavian country is home to roughly half of all the hydroelectric water storage reservoirs in Europe.
This vast system could also offer a Europe a substantial amount of energy storage -- up to 20 gigawatts of it -- if an ambitious scheme currently being proposed can overcome political and social hurdles and get the necessary funding. That’s according to Kaspar Vereide, an engineer at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim. And his models suggest it could all be achieved in seven years.
Vereide is not alone in thinking Norway could become a vast green battery for Europe. The Centre for Environmental Design of Renewable Energy has concluded that there are four realistic scenarios for pumped hydro energy storage in the country, ranging from a Nordics-only scenario, where Norway only looks after its own needs, plus some of those of its Scandinavian neighbors; to a so-called ‘big storage’ scenario, which, it says, would see “Norwegian hydropower play an important role in integrating variable renewable sources into the European power system by providing large volumes of balancing over various time horizons to the North Sea countries through highly integrated grids and power markets.”
It’s this "big storage" scenario -- with Norway becoming "the green battery of Europe" -- that Vereide has in mind. Cont'd...
Battery Costs Set To Fall 60% By 2020 From Energy Storage 'Megashift'
By Sophie Vorrath for RenewEconomy: The key role energy storage will play in the electricity grids of the future – and the vital importance of investing in and testing the various emerging battery storage technologies – has been highlighted in a major report published by the Australian Renewable Energy Agency on Monday, which predicts a 40-60 per cent price plunge for certain battery technologies by 2020.
The 130-page report prepared by AECOM predicts a “mega-shift” to energy storage adoption, driven by demand – from both the supply side, as networks work to adapt to increasing distributed and renewable energy capacity, and from consumers wishing to store their solar energy – and by the rapidly changing economic proposition; a proposition, the report says, that will see the costs of lithium-ion batteries fall by 60 per cent in less than five years, and by 40 per cent for flow batteries. Cont'd...
Renewable energy boom will mean vastly cheaper electricity
By Lucas Mearian, ComputerWorld: Renewable energy, combined with prolific battery storage, will soon result in vastly cheaper electricity -- and solar power that's less expensive than what fossil fuel-based power plants can produce.
Additionally, solar power with lithium-ion and flow-battery storage systems will make the combination of renewable energy so inexpensive that it will surpass nuclear power and obviate the need for futuristic power sources such as fusion.
That was consensus view from a several keynote speeches delivered at the Intersolar Conference in San Francisco this week.
Eicke Weber, director of the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems, said that in sun-rich countries, the cost of solar power is already below 5 cents per kilowatt and it will continue to plummet as battery storage systems become more prolific and less expensive. Cont'd...
Modeling Microinverters and DC Power Optimizers in PVWatts
PVWatts performs simplified PV system performance calculations using information about the arrays geographic location, orientation, and a set of user-input loss factors
Hydrogen Gas / Smoke Detector with Intrusion Alarm for Battery Room
From Eagle Eye Power Solutions:
The Eagle Eye HGD-3000 Hydrogen Gas and Smoke Detector with (optional) Silent Intrusion Alarm is designed for unattended battery installations or remote shelters containing gassing lead acid batteries and charging systems...
Lead-acid batteries on charge emit hydrogen gas after reaching the 80% recharge point. When mixed with enough air, hydrogen becomes a highly flammable gas that can ignite easily with just a spark, destroying equipment and harming personnel. The lower explosive level (LEL) for hydrogen is 4.1% by volume.
Hydrogen Gas Detection
Attach the HGD-3000 to the wall, ceiling, or optional junction box using the mounting holes at the top and bottom of the detector box. The HGD-3000 will turn on an exhaust fan when hydrogen gas levels reach 1% and will alarm at 2%. This alarm consists of a local 80db horn, a flashing red LED, and a dry contact switch closure for remote alarming.
Smoke Detection
The photoelectric smoke sensor detects minute combustion products from smoldering wire insulation, battery cases, and other material. When smoke is detected, a distinctive alarm is emitted from the 80db horn and a separate dry contact switch is activated. At this time, the exhaust fan is inhibited in order to deny the fire increased oxygen from outside air.
Temperature, Loss of Power, & Intrusion
During normal operation and in the absence of an alarm condition, an internal thermostat will turn on the exhaust fan at a preset temperature to reduce heat buildup in the room. Loss of power to the unit will also generate a dry contact alarm. Additionally, an optional infrared intrusion alarm will trigger a silent dry contact switch.
Product website
Is Home Energy Storage Coming to your House?
Home energy storage helps whichever energy source is the cheapest, and helps the grid stay stable and available to us all.
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Energy Storage - Featured Product
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