Energy Storage

The technology group Wärtsilä will supply a 7.8-megawatt / 7.8-megawatt hour energy storage system to a leading gold mining company to help achieve its climate targets and decarbonisation goals at a mine in Suriname. This is the first utility-scale energy storage system to be built in Suriname and Wärtsilä's first energy storage project in the country.

Fluence announced that the first 20-megawatt / 20-megawatt hour battery-based energy storage system in the 470 MW / 470 MWh portfolio the company is deploying for SMC Global Power Holdings Corp.

The town of Haren aims to be completely self-sufficient with green energy. New storage units in the H2 hub enable a meaningful use of excess electricity from peak times. The 16 wind turbines of the community wind farm Fehndorf-Lindloh are connected to an innovative PEM electrolysis system, and an additional battery storage system in combination with a superordinate energy mangement system.

This premium article provides a round-up of the news and developments, from the second half of 2021, within start-ups and companies developing advanced battery technologies.

Activities of automotive OEMs for battery thermal management

Toyota pioneered early electrification with their Prius hybrid, but have been hesitant to adopt battery-electric vehicles. In 2021, Toyota made announcements about their targets for EVs going forward.

In a significant achievement prototype battery ink cells were screen printed onto flexible plastic and successfully generated over 250mAh (milliamp hours) of electrical charge solely from moisture. In addition, over 5mA (milliamps) of electrical current was achieved under load over a 3-day testing period. The results detail a 150% increase in electrical charge compared to previous reporting.

Fires in electric vehicles (EVs) certainly gain a lot of media attention in comparison to their internal combustion engine (ICE) counterparts. But a crucial question for the future of mobility is whether EVs are actually any more likely to catch fire than an ICE vehicle. There is always a non-zero risk of Lithium-ion batteries entering thermal runaway but the key points are how likely is a fire, how problematic is an EV fire and what is being done to prevent or limit them in the future?

Thursday 10 February 2022 - This webinar looks at hydrogels beyond the medical applications that currently dominate the publicity, patents and research. Come away aware that someone will make a new billion-dollar business out of this and greatly benefit society, from smart cities to ample food, water, and electricity with zero emissions and so much more.

Britishvolt is powering ahead with its historic plans for its first full-scale electric-vehicle Gigaplant in Northumberland and is delighted that the project is receiving support from the Government through its Automotive Transformation Fund, delivered by the Advanced Propulsion Centre.

Zinc Battery Initiative , the voice of the zinc battery industry, welcomes Imprint Energy to its new and rapidly expanding membership of rechargeable zinc battery manufacturers. Imprint Energy develops safe, environmentally friendly batteries for smart labels and tags, medical patches, pill bottle trackers and medicine-delivery pens.

Fluence and ReNew Power announced an agreement to form a new company to meet the needs of local customers across India that will address the fast-developing energy storage market in India.

The massive energy storage system business is rising from about $460 billion to $660 billion in 2032 with lithium-based batteries for vehicles the big new segment. After that, ubiquitous solar houses will also grab large numbers of them.

Presentation from InnovationLab on The Battery Monitoring Solution

Through the agreement, Honeywell and FREYR intend to provide smart energy storage solutions to address the needs of a wide range of commercial and industrial customers alike. Subject to viability, FREYR will leverage Honeywell's broad automation and software expertise including automation systems, quality assurance and controls, and industrial software to provide manufacturing capacity at scale in Europe and the US.

A new biologically inspired battery membrane has enabled a battery with five times the capacity of the industry-standard lithium ion design to run for the thousand-plus cycles needed to power an electric car.

Pumped storage hydro is responsible for more delayed electricity than any other technology. However, it is running out of potential sites and getting building permission and constructing such facilities can take ten years partly because the environmental damage is increasingly unacceptable and water is increasingly scarce.

Alongside its already-established inverters, GoodWe is bringing to the UK a new series of low and high wattage batteries in 2022 later this year, as well as new utility scale inverters.

The world can use more energy without downside. Primarily, this must be achieved by zero-emission electricity made where it is needed.

Veolia has announced its first electric vehicle battery recycling facility in the UK, which will have the capacity to process 20% of the UK's end of life electric vehicle batteries by 2024.