#energy storage

[materialsscienceandengineering]

Power when the sun doesn’t shine

With batteries based on iron and air, Form Energy leverages MIT research to incorporate renewables into the grid.

In 2016, at the huge Houston energy conference CERAWeek, MIT materials scientist Yet-Ming Chiang found himself talking to a Tesla executive about a thorny problem: how to store the output of solar panels and wind turbines for long durations.         Chiang, the Kyocera Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, and Mateo Jaramillo, a vice president at Tesla, knew that utilities lacked a cost-effective way to store renewable energy to cover peak levels of demand and to bridge the gaps during windless and cloudy days. They also knew that the scarcity of raw materials used in conventional energy storage devices needed to be addressed if renewables were ever going to displace fossil fuels on the grid at scale.

Read more.

#Materials Science #Science #Solar power #Energy #Renewable energy #Energy storage #Batteries #Iron air batteries

[cannabisnewstoday]

#hemp #hemp batteries #energy storage #cannabis #marijuana #weed #pot #legalization #medical marijuana #mmj #medical cannabis #legalize

[head-post]

Britons have to choose between heating and eating this winter

The UK has some of the most poorly insulated homes in Europe, although the nation was previously a leader in this area. Fifteen years ago, around a million homes a year were retrofitted with insulation and a target was set for all new homes to be zero-carbon by 2016, Big Issue reports.

However, all these initiatives are now forgotten. The UK has pulled out of the race for a low-carbon economy – and working families in need of money will be paying the price. As the cold weather arrives, energy prices are on the rise again, and from this month, people are facing another price hike: a typical annual energy bill will rise by £95 to £1,928.

It costs over £700 a year more to heat a poorly insulated home than a well-insulated one. Yet the government offers nothing to the millions of people living in draughty homes and being overcharged.

The abolition of minimum energy efficiency standards in rented properties and a return to fossil fuel boilers points to a fundamental failure of leadership, according to Big Issue.

Read more HERE

#world news #world politics #news #europe #european news #uk politics #uk news #england #united kingdom #heating #central heating systems #utilities #passivhaus #energy saving #energy storage #energy security #energy efficiency

[kp777]

Engineers develop ultra-efficient electricity storage method using piles of rocks — here's how it works

#energy storage

[reasonsforhope]

“Next week a revolutionary new form of energy storage will debut in Switzerland after 14 years of engineering and installation.

With a storage capacity of 20 million kilowatt hours, enough to store the energy from wind, solar, nuclear or hydro and channel it to nearly 1 million homes, the Nant de Drance hydro-electric plant is ready to change the energy picture for Southern Europe.

The logistics of the Nant de Drance 900 megawatt “water battery” will blow one’s mind to read about, and involves the carving of 14 miles of tunnels under the Swiss alps in order to assemble massive prefabricated turbines and pumps around a pair of water reservoirs 1,800 feet underground...

But how does a water battery work, and what exactly is it? Electricity can be generated through heat, but also through kinetic energy. In considering the latter, rewenable energy storage devices take advantage of the fact that electricity can be “stored” by using its excess to move an object—in this case water.

Water from one large pool is pumped into another large pool in an underground chamber above. In this way electricity is “stored” in the sense that when power is needed in the homes of Switzerland, the water is then pumped through hydroelectric turbines to the chamber below with nothing other than the force of gravity...

While renewable energy storage often takes the form of large battery banks, the use of gravity or kinetic force is also growing.

A Scottish firm called Gravitricity is utilizing a similar principal, only with a 25-ton weight that is lifted up a tunnel—perhaps an old mineshaft—with the excess renewable energy, before its release channels those kilowatts back into the grid.” -via Good News Network, 11/29/22

#switzerland #renewable energy #battery #water battery #physics #energy storage #clean energy #good news #hope

[aci25]

New Breakthrough in Energy Storage – MIT Engineers Create Supercapacitor out of Ancient Materials

MIT engineers have created a “supercapacitor” made of ancient, abundant materials, that can store large amounts of energy. Made of just cement, water, and carbon black (which resembles powdered charcoal), the device could form the basis for inexpensive systems that store intermittently renewable energy, such as solar or wind energy. Credit: Image courtesy of Franz-Josef Ulm, Admir Masic, and Yang-Shao Horn

Constructed from cement, carbon black, and water, the device holds the potential to offer affordable and scalable energy storage for renewable energy sources.

Two of humanity’s most ubiquitous historical materials, cement and carbon black (which resembles very fine charcoal), may form the basis for a novel, low-cost energy storage system, according to a new study. The technology could facilitate the use of renewable energy sources such as solar, wind, and tidal power by allowing energy networks to remain stable despite fluctuations in renewable energy supply. 

The two materials, the researchers found, can be combined with water to make a supercapacitor — an alternative to batteries — that could provide storage of electrical energy. As an example, the MIT researchers who developed the system say that their supercapacitor could eventually be incorporated into the concrete foundation of a house, where it could store a full day’s worth of energy while adding little (or no) to the cost of the foundation and still providing the needed structural strength. The researchers also envision a concrete roadway that could provide contactless recharging for electric cars as they travel over that road.

The simple but innovative technology is described in a recent paper published in the journal PNAS, in a paper by MIT professors Franz-Josef Ulm, Admir Masic, and Yang-Shao Horn, and four others at MIT and at the Wyss Institute.

Capacitors are in principle very simple devices, consisting of two electrically conductive plates immersed in an electrolyte and separated by a membrane. When a voltage is applied across the capacitor, positively charged ions from the electrolyte accumulate on the negatively charged plate, while the positively charged plate accumulates negatively charged ions. Since the membrane in between the plates blocks charged ions from migrating across, this separation of charges creates an electric field between the plates, and the capacitor becomes charged. The two plates can maintain this pair of charges for a long time and then deliver them very quickly when needed. Supercapacitors are simply capacitors that can store exceptionally large charges.

The amount of power a capacitor can store depends on the total surface area of its conductive plates. The key to the new supercapacitors developed by this team comes from a method of producing a cement-based material with an extremely high internal surface area due to a dense, interconnected network of conductive material within its bulk volume. The researchers achieved this by introducing carbon black — which is highly conductive — into a concrete mixture along with cement powder and water, and letting it cure. The water naturally forms a branching network of openings within the structure as it reacts with cement, and the carbon migrates into these spaces to make wire-like structures within the hardened cement.

These structures have a fractal-like structure, with larger branches sprouting smaller branches, and those sprouting even smaller branchlets, and so on, ending up with an extremely large surface area within the confines of a relatively small volume. The material is then soaked in a standard electrolyte material, such as potassium chloride, a kind of salt, which provides the charged particles that accumulate on the carbon structures. Two electrodes made of this material, separated by a thin space or an insulating layer, form a very powerful supercapacitor, the researchers found.

Since the new “supercapacitor” concrete would retain its strength, a house with a foundation made of this material could store a day’s worth of energy produced by solar panels or windmills, and allow it to be used whenever it’s needed. Credit: Image courtesy of Franz-Josef Ulm, Admir Masic, and Yang-Shao Horn

The two plates of the capacitor function just like the two poles of a rechargeable battery of equivalent voltage: When connected to a source of electricity, as with a battery, energy gets stored in the plates, and then when connected to a load, the electrical current flows back out to provide power.

“The material is fascinating,” Masic says, “because you have the most-used manmade material in the world, cement, that is combined with carbon black, that is a well-known historical material — the Dead Sea Scrolls were written with it. You have these at least two-millennia-old materials that when you combine them in a specific manner you come up with a conductive nanocomposite, and that’s when things get really interesting.”

As the mixture sets and cures, he says, “The water is systematically consumed through cement hydration reactions, and this hydration fundamentally affects nanoparticles of carbon because they are hydrophobic (water repelling).” As the mixture evolves, “the carbon black is self-assembling into a connected conductive wire,” he says. The process is easily reproducible, with materials that are inexpensive and readily available anywhere in the world. And the amount of carbon needed is very small — as little as 3 percent by volume of the mix — to achieve a percolated carbon network, Masic says.

Supercapacitors made of this material have great potential to aid in the world’s transition to renewable energy, Ulm says. The principal sources of emissions-free energy, wind, solar, and tidal power, all produce their output at variable times that often do not correspond to the peaks in electricity usage, so ways of storing that power are essential. “There is a huge need for big energy storage,” he says, and existing batteries are too expensive and mostly rely on materials such as lithium, whose supply is limited, so cheaper alternatives are badly needed. “That’s where our technology is extremely promising, because cement is ubiquitous,” Ulm says.

The team calculated that a block of nanocarbon-black-doped concrete that is 45 cubic meters (or yards) in size — equivalent to a cube about 3.5 meters across — would have enough capacity to store about 10 kilowatt-hours of energy, which is considered the average daily electricity usage for a household. Since the concrete would retain its strength, a house with a foundation made of this material could store a day’s worth of energy produced by solar panels or windmills and allow it to be used whenever it’s needed. And, supercapacitors can be charged and discharged much more rapidly than batteries.

After a series of tests used to determine the most effective ratios of cement, carbon black, and water, the team demonstrated the process by making small supercapacitors, about the size of some button-cell batteries, about 1 centimeter across and 1 millimeter thick, that could each be charged to 1 volt, comparable to a 1-volt battery. They then connected three of these to demonstrate their ability to light up a 3-volt light-emitting diode (LED). Having proved the principle, they now plan to build a series of larger versions, starting with ones about the size of a typical 12-volt car battery, then working up to a 45-cubic-meter version to demonstrate its ability to store a house-worth of power.

There is a tradeoff between the storage capacity of the material and its structural strength, they found. By adding more carbon black, the resulting supercapacitor can store more energy, but the concrete is slightly weaker, and this could be useful for applications where the concrete is not playing a structural role or where the full strength-potential of concrete is not required. For applications such as a foundation, or structural elements of the base of a wind turbine, the “sweet spot” is around 10 percent carbon black in the mix, they found.

Another potential application for carbon-cement supercapacitors is for building concrete roadways that could store energy produced by solar panels alongside the road and then deliver that energy to electric vehicles traveling along the road using the same kind of technology used for wirelessly rechargeable phones. A related type of car-recharging system is already being developed by companies in Germany and the Netherlands, but using standard batteries for storage.

Initial uses of the technology might be for isolated homes or buildings or shelters far from grid power, which could be powered by solar panels attached to the cement supercapacitors, the researchers say. 

Ulm says that the system is very scalable, as the energy-storage capacity is a direct function of the volume of the electrodes. “You can go from 1-millimeter-thick electrodes to 1-meter-thick electrodes, and by doing so basically you can scale the energy storage capacity from lighting an LED for a few seconds, to powering a whole house,” he says.

Depending on the properties desired for a given application, the system could be tuned by adjusting the mixture. For a vehicle-charging road, very fast charging and discharging rates would be needed, while for powering a home “you have the whole day to charge it up,” so slower-charging material could be used, Ulm says.

“So, it’s really a multifunctional material,” he adds. Besides its ability to store energy in the form of supercapacitors, the same kind of concrete mixture can be used as a heating system, by simply applying electricity to the carbon-laced concrete.

Ulm sees this as “a new way of looking toward the future of concrete as part of the energy transition.”

Reference: “Carbon–cement supercapacitors as a scalable bulk energy storage solution” by Nicolas Chanut, Damian Stefaniuk, James C. Weaver, Yunguang Zhu, Yang Shao-Horn, Admir Masic and Franz-Josef Ulm, 31 July 2023, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2304318120

The research team also included postdocs Nicolas Chanut and Damian Stefaniuk at MIT’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, James Weaver at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, and Yunguang Zhu in MIT’s Department of Mechanical Engineering. The work was supported by the MIT Concrete Sustainability Hub, with sponsorship by the Concrete Advancement Foundation.

Source: scitechdaily.com

#Carbon Emissions #Civil Engineering #Engineering #MIT #Renewable Energy #Energy Storage #Ancient Materials #Tech News #good news

[mark-ming]

Photovoltaic balcony energy storage power supply demonstration diagram

#photovoltaic #energy storage

[indizombie]

About 30 pounds of cobalt go into each EV battery to boost performance and energy storage, which are key to luring consumers from dirtier gas cars. But today 70% of cobalt comes from the Democratic Republic of Congo, where an estimated 40,000 children as young as 6 work in dangerous mines. The mines also bring deforestation, habitat fragmentation and high carbon emissions from mining and refinery processes that rely heavily on fossil fuels to produce electricity and drive heavy machinery. Some sources say cobalt mining’s CO2 emissions could double by 2030.

Tim Lyndon, ‘The EV Revolution Brings Environmental Uncertainty at Every Turn’, EcoWatch

#EcoWatch #Tim Lyndon #cobalt #EV batteries #performance #energy storage #Democratic Republic of Congo #child workers #deforestation #habitat fragmentation #carbon emissions #fossil fuels #electricity production #heavy machinery

[energy-5]

Incorporating Renewable Energy into Your EV Charging Routine

The shift towards electric vehicles (EVs) has been a significant stride in the collective effort to reduce carbon emissions and combat climate change. As the electric vehicle market continues to grow, with global sales hitting over 6.6 million in 2021, a 108% increase from the previous year, the focus now turns to how we power these vehicles. Transitioning from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources for EV charging is the next critical step in ensuring that the benefits of EVs are fully realized. This article explores the ways in which individuals and communities can incorporate renewable energy into their EV charging routines.

Firstly, the concept of 'green charging'—the process of using renewable energy to charge electric vehicles—is not only environmentally sound but also increasingly economically viable. The cost of solar photovoltaic (PV) systems has dropped by about 90% since 2010, making it an accessible option for many. Homeowners with EVs can install solar panels to capture energy during the day, which can then be used to charge their vehicles in the evening. For those without the option to install solar panels, choosing a green energy provider for their home charging setup that sources electricity from renewables is an effective alternative.

In addition to solar power, wind energy is another potent source for EV charging. Wind energy has experienced a dramatic increase in its adoption, with the global wind power capacity reaching 837 GW in 2021, an increase of 93% from the capacity in 2016. EV owners can tap into this resource by purchasing wind energy credits or by selecting energy plans that prioritize wind-sourced electricity. This ensures that the energy used for charging their EVs comes from clean sources, even if they are not directly connected to a wind farm.

The integration of smart chargers has made it easier for EV owners to charge their vehicles when renewable energy production is at its peak. Smart chargers can be programmed to operate when renewable energy generation is high, which usually coincides with low demand periods such as mid-day for solar or night-time for wind. By doing so, EV owners ensure their vehicles are charged using the cleanest energy possible while also taking advantage of lower energy prices during these off-peak times.

Another key element in aligning EV charging with renewable energy is the development of a robust public charging infrastructure that is powered by renewables. Governments and private companies are investing in the installation of public EV charging stations that are directly connected to renewable energy sources. For instance, in California, which leads the US with over 39% of the country's EV sales, there is a plan to install 250,000 charging stations by 2025, many of which will be powered by renewables.

On a larger scale, energy storage systems play a vital role in matching renewable energy supply with EV charging demand. Energy storage solutions, like lithium-ion batteries or pumped hydro storage, can store excess renewable energy generated during peak production times. This stored energy can then be used to provide a consistent and reliable source of green electricity for EV charging, regardless of the time of day or weather conditions.

There is also a growing trend towards vehicle-to-grid (V2G) systems, where EVs do not just consume power but also have the capability to return energy to the grid. This technology allows for a dynamic energy exchange where EVs can be charged during renewable energy peak production and then supply energy back to the grid when it's needed the most. This not only ensures optimal use of renewable energy but also provides stability to the energy grid and potentially offers financial benefits to EV owners.

Finally, to truly capitalize on renewable energy for EV charging, there needs to be increased collaboration between policymakers, renewable energy providers, and the automotive industry. Incentives for residential and commercial solar installations, tax benefits for purchasing green energy, and subsidies for smart chargers are just a few of the ways that can accelerate the adoption of renewable-powered EV charging.

#evcharging #environment #green energy #clean energy #renewableenergy #energy storage #vehicle to grid

[bosaenergy]

In terms of production speed and professionalism, you can always trust Bosa. Want to know more details of Bosa ESS? Please contact: www.bosaenergy.com [email protected]

#lfp battery #energy storage #lithium battery #battery #lithium #solar energy

[bumblebeeappletree]

The lithium-ion battery has powered us for decades. But for a renewable future, we need a new solution—and fast. So what are our options?

CORRECTION: In the video, at 05:40, we say lithium-ion batteries can only store energy for under four hours. This is incorrect. Four hours is the discharge duration that is currently economically viable.

Reporter: Beina Xu

Video Editor: Tomas Rosenberg

Supervising Editor: Joanna Gottschalk

We're destroying our environment at an alarming rate. But it doesn't need to be this way. Our new channel Planet A explores the shift towards an eco-friendly world — and challenges our ideas about what dealing with climate change means. We look at the big and the small: What we can do and how the system needs to change. Every Friday we'll take a truly global look at how to get us out of this mess.

#PlanetA #Lithium #Battery

Read more:

The future of energy storage: https://energy.mit.edu/wp-content/upl...

Projections of energy storage technology: https://www.nrel.gov/analysis/storage...

Power storage technology, using sand and engineered materials: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science...

IEA Electricity Market Report: https://www.iea.org/reports/electrici...

IEA Energy Storage Report: https://www.iea.org/reports/energy-st...

Costs and markets to 2030: https://www.irena.org/publications/20...

Chapters:

00:00 Intro

00:49 The lithium-ion battery

02:33 Hydro

03:46 Sodium-ion

05:00 Thermal heat

07:11 The future

#dw planet a #solarpunk #lithium-ion battery #lithium battery #lithium #battery #energy #renewable energy #green energy #clean energy #energy storage #Youtube #salt #sand

[materialsscienceandengineering]

Scientists create process to upcycle plastics into energy-storage liquids using light-emitting diodes

Scientists from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) have created a process that can upcycle most plastics into chemical ingredients useful for energy storage, using light-emitting diodes (LEDs) and a commercially available catalyst, all at room temperature. The new process is very energy-efficient and can be easily powered by renewable energy in the future, unlike other heat-driven recycling processes like pyrolysis. This innovation overcomes the current challenges in recycling plastics such as polypropylene (PP), polyethylene (PE) and polystyrene (PS), which are typically incinerated or discarded in landfills. Globally, only nine percent of plastics are recycled, and plastic pollution is growing at an alarming rate. The biggest challenge of recycling these plastics is their inert carbon-carbon bonds, which are very stable and thus require a significant amount of energy to break. This bond is also the reason why these plastics are resistant to many chemicals and have relatively high melting points.

Read more.

#Materials Science #Science #Plastics #Polymers #Recycling #Waste #Liquids #Energy #Energy storage #Light emitting diodes #LEDs #Nanyang Technological University

[powerfar]

Powerfar smart home energy storage products adopt an integrated design, exquisite and beautiful, and easy to install. It can supply power for residences, public facilities, small factories, etc. The energy storage system is similar to a micro power station, which can solve the pressure of urban power supply.

During non-peak hours, the energy storage products charge themselves for use during peak or power outages. In addition to emergency power supply, the smart home energy storage system can save money and balance your electrical load.

#home energy storage #power supply #energy storage

[kp777]

Ingenious sand-based battery can store solar and wind energy: 'There's really nothing fancy there'

#sand battery #energy storage #finland #clean energy

[awesome-casuallyfamouscollector]

Batteries manufactured by HiNa have an energy density of 145 Wh/kg and can endure 4,500 cycles. The next stage aims at 8,000 to 10,000 cycles and up to 200 Wh/kg energy density, according to the company(..)

CATL unveiled its own sodium-ion battery back in 2021 with an energy density of 160 Wh/kg and its next generation battery cell is supposed to exceed 200 Wh/kg. The company is planning to begin commercialization of its product from next year.BYD has more solid plans when it comes to its own sodium batteries, the company has been reported that it is to start manufacturing of the new sodium-ion cells in the second quarter of next year. Later the company went on to deny those reports(..)

#sodium-ion battery #HiNa #BYD #CATL #ev manufacturing #energy safety #energy storage #breaking news #China #affordable ev #demise of legacy automakers #demise of big oil #russian defeat

[man-and-atom]

It’s always important to read to the end of an article!

Carlsson said the math of renewable energy points to another important lesson: The search for perfection might be counterproductive. A hypothetical system that runs exclusively on renewable solar and wind power would be significantly more expensive than a renewable system that used small amounts of natural gas as a backup, he said.

He estimated that, with current technology, a 100% renewable system that powered St. Louis could cost $130,000 per household. A system that was 95% or 99% renewable, however, could be in the range of $80,000 to $90,000.

“Extremely highly renewable systems are very expensive,” Carlsson said. “If we can get to 99% renewable in 10 years, versus 100% renewable in 30 years, we'd better figure out how to get to that 99%.”

What does the actual paper say?

For an annual failure rate of less than 3%, it is sufficient to have a solar generation capacity that slightly exceeds the daily electrical load at the winter solstice, together with a few days of storage.

The definition of “annual failure rate” appears to be the chance that, in a given year, a day will come, on or about the winter solstice (when insolation is least), that the storage will be exhausted and power demand cannot be met. This does not necessarily imply 263 hours of blackout in an average year, which would indeed be poor value for money!

There are two glaring flaws in the analysis. The first, which mostly affects price calculations, is that only the present–day electrical demand is considered. No allowance is made for the likely doubling or tripling of system loads as a result of promoting electric cars, electrification of home heat, and so on. The second, which appears to completely invalidate the analysis, is that, while great effort is made to simulate the variation of solar energy input, no allowance whatever is made for variation of system load, which is assumed to be a constant 4·6 GW, all day long, all year round.

The paper quotes the cost of a solar installation “just sufficient to supply the daily electrical load of the St. Louis region during an average insolation day at the winter solstice” at $75 billion (covering a land area of 16×16 km, out of the 270×270 considered as the “region”), and the cost of storage for one day worth of load at $22 billion. The minimum–cost result of their simulation calls for about 1·2× the minimum solar installation, and 2 days of storage, for a total of about $134 billion.

Let us consider the alternative that is not mentioned. A 100% nuclear energy system is commonly assumed to be far too expensive. Three EPRs, generating 4·9 GW continuously (excepting refueling outages, once every 18 months per reactor or 6 months for the plant, which can usually be scheduled during periods of low demand), at the price of Hinkley Point C, would be about $60 billion. Four AP–1000s, generating 4·5 GW, would be something like $60 billion at the price of Vogtle 3&4. And three Korean APR–1400 units, generating 4·0 GW, would be about $18 billion at the price of Barakah. These figures should give us some kind of basis to work from.

For this price, even at the exceptionally high prices of Hinkley Point C and Vogtle 3&4, we could buy some 10 GW of nuclear generation, which would be adequate to meet, under virtually any conditions, a system load of twice the average. At Barakah prices, 30 GW could be had, which would be more than adequate to handle any foreseeable load escalation.

The above calculation does not even consider the possible use of nuclear heat. Nor does it account for the cost differences due to lifespan of facilities ― storage batteries will probably need replacement in 6 to 10 years, PV panels in 12 to 20, and nuclear steam plants in 40 to 60 years (with major refurbishment after 20 to 30 years).

We are often told that wind, solar, and storage are cheaper than nuclear, but this hardly seems to be the case. We are also often told that they are constantly coming down in price, so that even if they aren’t cheaper this year, they will be next year, and there is no reason to make investments in nuclear. We wonder. People in the industry seem to think that even Barakah costs are much above those possible, given the kind of learning and replication involved with the kind of large global commitment which a real effort at decarbonization would require.

#Quantitative Thinking #atomic power to the people #energy storage #Renewable Energy #Deep Decarbonization