Energy Storage Advancement Projects Highlighted By California Energy Commission

From EarthTechling's Laura Caseley:

Creating energy from renewable sources is just one part of the challenge. Storing the energy so it can used how and when it’s needed – that’s every bit as important. Which is what led the California Energy Commission to recently award $845,894 to two projects dedicated to energy storage advancement.

The first project, headed by EnerVault of Sunnyvale, received $476,428, supplementing a $4.76 million grant that came courtesy the 2009 stimulus, and $4.29 million of privately raised capital. That all adds up to $9.53 million, which will pay to install and evaluate the company’s novel flow battery technology for commercial viability. This test will be done with a 150-kilowatt photovoltaic power system in the state’s Central Valley.

The hope is that EnerVault can succeed in offering safe, economical and adequate storage options for utility-scale renewable energy projects, whose intermittent production makes them sometimes difficult to integrate with the grid. Current battery technology tends to be too expensive to meet utility-scale needs, and overheating can be a concern, as well. EnerVault uses an iron-chromium redox system, in which, according to NASA, “electricity is generated when pumps move the electrolytes into separate sections of a reaction chamber. Electrodes collect that charge, and the electrolytes can then be recharged from an outside power source.”

The second project is from Fremont-based Amber Kinetics. The company received $369,466 for the research, development and demonstration of a utility-scale flywheel energy storage system, which they hope will boost the use of such technology due to its high efficiency and low cost. In a flywheel system, energy is stored as rotational energy as a rotor, or flywheel, spins at a very high rate. The faster the wheel spins, the more energy is stored, and as energy is taken out, the wheel’s speed decreases. Amer Kinetics also received $3.7 million from the U.S. Department of Energy, and comes in with $5.94 million of its own capital toward the total $10 million project cost.

Comments

[AVCVanadium]

04:59 PM on 09/20/2011

How do the operating specs of these flow batteries compare to those of Vanadium Redox Flow Batteries?

Vanadium Redox Flow Batteries are the answer to the Achilles Heel of the renewable energy sector - storage.

"Obama Hails Vanadium Energy Breakthrough" : http://www.resourceinvestor.com/News/2011/3/Pages/Obama-Hails-Vanadium-Energy-Breakthrough-.aspx

http://www.americanvanadium.com/disclaimer.php

[DANIELLECLARKE]

01:03 PM on 08/14/2011

use solar during daylight to repump water back into reservoirs / dams for energy storage.

all that stored water is stored energy.. every dam should have solar too to repump the water back up for future use

Every towns water storage tanks could also have solar to pump their water up

[John02050]

08:27 AM on 08/13/2011

Energy can be stored in fuel form, like methane/biogas, biodiesel, and ethanol, and used on demand.

Both the technologies in the article are somewhat promising.

Photovoltaics are developing to convert UV and infrared into electricity so they work under clouds and at night.

There are solar tower systems being developed which work on air temperature differential and therefore work at night and do not require water to rinse off mirrors.

So there are already options for energy storage which allow for fluctuations in demand, and energy storage will become less of an issue over time as more technologies which allow continuous baseload power come online.

[Malcolm Hensley]

09:43 PM on 08/12/2011

A tried and true method of energy storage is potential energy it could be water I imagine it could be any number of mass moving concepts.

Say you have a large wind farm or solar cell installation you have two dams connected by a river. When you have plenty of power you pump water from the lower reservoir to the upper reservoir. When you need power you let some water out of the dam and drive a turbine.

Now instead of water think of something akin to an electric train going up a mountain. When you have plenty of power you sent the train type vehicle up the mountain when you need power you let the train roll down the mountain.

I know, dumb idea. To expensive but all the systems I've looked at have the same dollar flaw.

We need another S curve!

[DANIELLECLARKE]

01:04 PM on 08/14/2011

every dam should have solar to repump the water back up

[Joe Friday]

10:49 AM on 08/15/2011

Check out Raccoon Reservoir, Tennessee. TVA project from the 70's that could test your concept!

[Progressive Dem]

03:28 PM on 08/12/2011

Eight Billion in Oil and Nautral Gas Federal subsudies and we thrown a few pennies at Green Energy Tech. This country is pitifull.

[justobserve]

05:45 PM on 08/12/2011

Exactly! And they don't want to cut those 8 billions while looking into cutting the middle class' benefits to the score.

[Malcolm Hensley]

09:59 PM on 08/12/2011

for a nice accounting of energy subsidies check this site out.

Sorry it's not flashy but it is government sponsored.

http://www.eia.gov/oiaf/servicerpt/subsidy2/pdf/execsum.pdf

[jacobomorales]

06:39 PM on 08/12/2011

This country is dying.....

[Malcolm Hensley]

10:00 PM on 08/12/2011

What's keeping you here?

Just curious?

[Genep34]

09:06 AM on 08/14/2011

too bad it is not just this country - seems to be a trend - though some countries are more progressive than others

[mothergrace]

02:49 PM on 08/12/2011

You don't have to wait for storage capacity. Even if you use whatever the sun can give you during the day, you can still have significant energy and money savings.

I had some solar panels just for heating my hot water without storage capacity and even near the coast I saved quite a bit.

If everyone did that, we could use fossil fuels judiciously while we perfected storage. Of course, we have significantly less oil, gas and coal now than we did when this was first proposed but it is still worth it to use what is left carefully.

[Malcolm Hensley]

09:56 PM on 08/12/2011

Good points I think burning fossil fuels is a waste of good chemical raw materials that should be shared with future generations.

[fireofenergy]

01:48 PM on 08/12/2011

Only advanced machine automation could ever make RE storage (and itself) cheap enough to solve the problems and add 500,000 square miles of installation jobs. This link dramatizes the message...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpVoO60N6mg

[Genders]

09:55 PM on 08/12/2011

Waste bio fuels are all you need. Very low tech.