Energy Storage News

Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry plans to set aside about 93 billion yen ($779 million) to help factories and small-sized businesses install devices to improve energy efficiency. The ministry is asking for the budget to set up devices such as light-emitting diode lamps and boilers with better efficiency, according to a summary of requests included as part of a supplementary budget for the year ending March 31. It will be considered by cabinet today. METI also plans to spend about 81 billion yen in response to grid issues the country is facing in order to accommodate more renewable energy.

Here’s why something as basic as a battery both thrills and terrifies the U.S. utility industry. At a sagebrush-strewn industrial park outside of Reno, Nevada, bulldozers are clearing dirt for Tesla Motors Inc. (TSLA)’s battery factory, projected to be the world’s largest. Tesla’s founder, Elon Musk, sees the $5 billion facility as a key step toward making electric cars more affordable, while ending reliance on oil and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. 

Beacon Power LLC predicts an Alaskan island’s use of its flywheels to store energy from a power plant will pave the way for more widespread application of the technology to help cut the use of fossil fuels. Storing energy from intermittent renewable sources to let power plants run more evenly could be used in large projects as well as small, closed electricity systems known as microgrids, Chief Executive Officer Barry Brits said yesterday in an interview. The 165-kilowatt flywheels project to store energy from TDX Power Inc.’s hybrid wind and diesel plant on Saint Paul Island in the Bering Sea will cut fuel use by 30 percent, Beacon, a Tyngsboro, Massachusetts-based company that was sold in bankruptcy in 2012, said today in a statement. It said the implementation of the project has already started.

Imergy is in discussions with five mining companies that may supply it with the Vanadium it uses in its technology, Bill Watkins, chief executive officer of the company based in Fremont, California, said in an e-mail. It’s also working with a number of mining companies as potential customers for its systems, he said, declining to name them.

ViZn Energy Systems Inc., the Montana-based producer of battery-storage systems, is seeking as much as $25 million during the next six months to expand manufacturing. ViZn expects to increase production of its zinc-iron flow batteries, which store and send power to a grid, late in the fourth quarter or early in the first, Chief Executive Officer Ron Van Dell said in a phone interview today. He declined to specify the amount of the increase or name potential customers. A $25 million investment would be enough to get the five-year-old closely held company “fully funded, with some headroom,” said Van Dell, who previously worked for Dell Inc. and General Electric Co. “We’ll be on our way to just pure execution until we’re cash-flow positive.”

SunPower Corp., the second-largest U.S. solar manufacturer, is offering energy-storage systems to California homeowners that will power houses at night with electricity generated from sunlight during the day. The company is testing systems that combine rooftop solar panels with battery storage in new homes built by KB Home (KBH), San Jose, California-based SunPower said in a statement today.

GS Yuasa Corp., a Japanese battery maker, will build a one-megawatt solar-power station with an energy storage system in Gunma prefecture northwest of Tokyo. Construction on vacant land at a production site in Gunma will begin next month, the Kyoto-based company said in a statement today. The plant is expected to start running in January.

The world is on the brink of a serious surge in batteries -- and not just the kind that powers mobile phones, laptops and sports cars. Batteries of the near future will power homes and hospitals and even provide relief for the grid, with in an industry that may be worth $200 billion in 2020. The battery boom got an extra boost from the Environmental Protection Agency, with new regulations proposed this month to limit power-plant pollution. In a departure from previous rules, the EPA leaves it to individual states to determine how they will cut emissions. Some states will build more efficient buildings, others will shift from coal to cleaner-burning natural gas. An often-overlooked beneficiary is battery makers.

American Vanadium Corp., owner of the only known U.S. deposit of the metal, is in talks with a global power company and two large domestic solar developers on plans to use its battery technology in “major” contracts they’re seeking. The three are targeting the deals to install solar and energy-storage microgrids this year, American Vanadium Chief Executive Officer Bill Radvak said in an interview in London.

Clean energy investment rose by 9 percent in the first quarter from a year earlier on surging demand for rooftop solar panels from the U.S. to Japan. New investment in renewable power and energy efficiency rose to $47.7 billion in the first three months of the year from $43.6 billion, Bloomberg New Energy Finance said today in an e-mailed statement. The increase may mark a turnaround. Investment in low-carbon power and energy-efficiency equipment has fallen for two years as industrialized nations pared back subsidies. After peaking at $318 billion in 2011, new spending on clean energy subsided to $254 billion last year, according to BNEF figures.

Aquion Energy Inc., the energy-storage developer backed by Bill Gates and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, expects to begin commercial shipments of batteries in mid-2014. “We’re looking to start scaling the business,” Chief Executive Officer Scott Pearson said today in a telephone interview. “We’re going to be shipping megawatt-hours per quarter this year and tens of megawatt-hours next year.” The closely held company, based in Pittsburgh, makes aqueous hybrid ion batteries that use saltwater to conduct electricity. The stackable units each hold 1.7 kilowatt-hours of energy. They’re designed to hold charges for several hours and may be drained and recharged daily. The technology is based on research conducted at Carnegie Mellon University.

Toshiba Corp. supplied batteries to a Kyushu Electric Power Co. project on two remote islands south of the Japanese mainland that seeks to demonstrate technology to store energy generated from wind and solar power plants. Two- and three-megawatt systems using lithium-ion batteries were delivered to Tanegashima and Amami Oshima, the Tokyo-based electronics maker said today in a statement. Toshiba has also won an order from Tohoku Electric Power Co.for a 40-megawatt storage system, according to the statement.

A 40-foot trailer loaded with 25 tons of liquid metals may be the solution to the renewable-energy industry’s biggest challenge: making sure power is available whenever it’s needed. A Boston-area startup founded by MIT researchers is working to turn this new concept into a commercial product, liquid-metal batteries that will store electricity for less than $500 a kilowatt-hour. That’s less than a third the cost of some current battery technologies.

The rapid development of rooftop solar and battery storage technology could be as transformative to the economy and modern life as the U.S. oil and gas boom, Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz said. “It’s pretty dramatic,” Moniz said yesterday in an interview with Bloomberg News at the IHS CERAWeek conference in Houston. “They are growing very, very fast.” Batteries allow customers with solar panels to store energy during the day and then tap the excess overnight when the sun goes down. The widespread use of electric vehicles could reshape the development of cities, and applying the same battery storage technology to transform the U.S. energy system has “huge potential,” Moniz said.

Green Charge Networks, a provider of power-storage systems, is receiving a $10 million loan commitment from TIP Capital to offer its products to customers with no upfront costs. Green Charge’s systems let users reduce their utility bills by drawing power from batteries instead of the grid during periods of peak demand, Brian Asparro, chief financial officer of the Santa Clara, California-based company, said in a telephone interview. 

SolarCity Corp. the second largest U.S. solar company by market value, is offering power-storage systems to commercial customers that will reduce utility bills and provide electricity during blackouts.The systems will let retailers, schools and offices in parts of California and New England lower their peak power consumption from the grid and reduce demand charges from utilities, said Chief Executive Officer Lyndon Rive.

Okinawa Electric Power Co. will set up a battery storage system on Japan’s southernmost island to handle extra capacity generated by solar power projects. The device is needed because the electricity grid on the island of Okinawa is expected to reach its maximum ability to accept solar energy, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry said today in a statement. Applications to build solar farms with 300 kilowatts of capacity or bigger could reach 57 megawatts as early as this month, METI said.

Hitachi Ltd. unveiled an energy-storage system that the company said will support wind and solar power and allow users to sell electricity into deregulated markets such as California.  The units can be installed on high-voltage power lines, and will be able to capture excess energy produced by wind and solar sources so it can be sold back into the network when the demand for power exceeds the supply. The systems, which include telecommunications and lithium-ion battery technologies developed by Tokyo-based Hitachi, will also minimize volatility on the power grid, company officials said today at a press conference in Washington.

Toshiba Corp.  will supply an energy storage system for a pilot project by Tohoku Electric Power Co.(to stabilize the flow of electricity generated by wind and solar power. The battery system, which will have 20-megawatt hours of storage capacity, will be set up at a substation in the northern city of Sendai in Miyagi prefecture north of Tokyo, Toshiba said in a statement today. The lithium-ion battery system is expected to be installed by February 2015, Tohoku Electric said in a statement yesterday.

Lead’s longest supply glut in a decade is easing as smelters shut just as global sales of cars, whose batteries are the single biggest source of demand, expand to a record.

Samsung SDI and S&C Electric will develop an energy storage project in the U.K.  Samsung SDI will supply lithium-ion batteries at a substation in Bedfordshire, England, said Andrew Jones, the managing director of S&C Electric Company Europe Ltd. The 18.7 million-pound ($28.6 million) project will store as much as 10MWh of power.

SolarCity ... is developing storage systems that will reduce its dependence on utilities within two years ... Adding storage will eliminate the company’s need to sell power to utilities through an arrangement known as net metering ...

Abe’s target may include investment in storage batteries, Mika Ohbayashi, director of the Japan Renewable Energy Foundation , said by phone. Japan has been promoting the development of storage batteries to help stabilize power generation that depends on the sun shining and wind blowing.

Primus Power, a closely held battery maker, may announce next month a third customer that (will) use its systems to store excess power from a wind farm, according to Chief Executive Officer Tom Stepien.