Energy Storage

Some of the 300 million tires discarded each year in the United States alone could be used in supercapacitors for vehicles and the electric grid.

An international team of scientists led by the inventor of the lithium ion battery has put forward a new cathode material for its potential successor, the sodium ion battery.

Wildcat Discovery Technologies is a materials R&D company located in San Diego, California. Wildcat is focused on the discovery of advanced materials for lithium-ion batteries, with secondary work on variety of other applications. Wildcat scientists use proprietary state-of-the-art high throughput technology to synthesize and test thousands of battery materials, each fully formulated and tested in actual cells. Wildcat collaborates with industry leaders around the world to develop promising new materials for new and promising rechargeable and primary battery technologies.

As energy harvesting becomes a different and much more noticed subject, IDTechEx monitors the situation by intensive visits to many events, companies and universities. The meeting of the Japan Energy Harvesting Consortium September 2015 was certainly revealing.

Electric buses are deeply significant, being a key to the control of urban pollution and often first to adopt innovative parts.

The Artega Scalo with a purely electric drive is the direct successor of the Artega GT, which inspired car fans around the world.

Scientists have developed an alkaline flow battery that they hope will help to tackle the tricky problem of storing energy from renewable power sources such as wind and solar.

A unique, multipurpose unmanned ground vehicle will be the first vehicle of its kind to use ultracapacitor technology.

Video interview with Flexous at Energy Harvesting & Storage Europe.

Drivers of Hyundai's ix35 Fuel Cell, the only fuel cell car on sale in the UK, can now fill up with hydrogen at one of the world's greenest filling stations, located just off the M1 motorway near Sheffield.

ITM Power has signed a strategic siting partnership with Shell for the delivery of Hydrogen Refuelling Stations on three Shell retail forecourts in the UK.

Being the automotive sector a trillion dollar market and given the existence of multiple low carbon powertrain technologies and sunk investments in specific powertrains technologies, the possibility of "betting on the wrong horse" makes the transition to low carbon vehicles a very risky process for incumbent automotive companies (global automotive manufacturers and their tier one suppliers). Through these technology developments these incumbent companies are primarily trying to maintain or increase their captured added value of the automotive value chain and their global sales market share. For new entrants with no existing interests, the risks are lower given they are not compelled to capture most of the value of the powertrain technology, giving them the possibility of sharing it with other parts of the value chain (suppliers, technology developers etc.)

Video interview with Sonnenrepublik at Energy Harvesting & Storage Europe.

Another major focus was 48V systems some in EVs but mainly for microhybrid (stop-start) and mild hybrid (torque assist) for managing the now huge amounts of energy in and out with new forms of harvesting and tougher duty cycles and also more power-hungry accessories. That has resulted in a large number of redesigned and new accessories in anticipation of new standards.

The Riversimple two seat fuel cell hybrid car was on show in powertrain form at CENEX recently and in addition to the Hydrogenics fuel cell as fuel tank and the lithium-ion capacitor as engine it had four in-wheel motors.

Canadian company Electrovaya, with the help of investment promotion agency Germany Trade & invest (GTAI), acquired Germany's Litarion in Kamenz, Saxony.

Two guest speakers from Japan will present at the IDTechEx insight forums in Tokyo on 28 September, providing in-depth analysis into printed electronics. www.IDTechEx.com/PEAsia

A new material comprising interspersed layers of graphene and phosphorene has been shown by US researchers to be a more stable, more conductive and higher capacity anode for sodium ion batteries than previous materials.

Scientists have developed a new fuel cell catalyst using earthly abundant materials with performance that is comparable to platinum in laboratory tests.

Off-grid electricity production on land has lessons for energy independent electric vehicles (EIVs) that come later. These generate all their own electricity from wind, waves, sun and other forms of ambient energy - free and clean.