Energy Storage

Geothermal energy is any heat derived from the ground, from depths of a few metres to multiple kilometres beneath the Earth's surface.

On the face of it, 2021 was a good year for fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEV) in passenger car markets. Toyota, with their second generation Mirai FCEV, and Hyundai, with their NEXO FCEV, both had record sales, which largely made up for Honda announcing in June 2021 that it had decided to pull the plug on production of their Honda Clarity FCV (citing the lack of hydrogen infrastructure and weak demand).

CENS Materials are developing a CNT product for use in Li-ion battery electrodes. IDTechEx caught up with CEO Moshe Johary.

While the EV sector will remain dominated by Li-ion battery chemistries, due to the relatively high requirements on high energy density, there can be far more flexibility in the battery chemistries and technologies used for stationary energy storage applications.

Smartwatches, fitness trackers and other Internet of Things devices could get a significant boost to their "battery" life thanks to new, environmentally friendly energy research.

Project Triumph TE-1 has been revealed in completed prototype form. The unique collaboration between Triumph Motorcycles, Williams Advanced Engineering, Integral Powertrain Ltd, and WMG at the University of Warwick funded by the Office for Zero Emission Vehicles through Innovate UK, was set up to create ground-breaking developments in specialist electric motorcycle engineering and innovative integrated technology design.

The Swedish Energy Agency gives Stena Recycling SEK 70.7 million in support for the investment in a new battery recycling plant in Halmstad. Stena Recycling's target is to become one of Europe's leading players in the recycling of lithium-ion batteries.

Electric cars are the future; they will help reduce air pollution and end our dependence on fossil fuels. However, there is one glaring problem with this potentially disruptive technology: the availability of sufficient lithium to produce all these car batteries.

SABIC has been presenting an EV battery pack with a focus on its thermoplastic materials.

With demand for electric vehicles growing rapidly, the global automotive and energy storage industries will be competing to access raw materials, especially lithium, that are a crucial component of batteries.

RFBs have been purchased for stationary energy storage for over eight years but now the demand for such 4-8 hour storage is increasing coincident with lower cost RFBs becoming available and a very suitable new type of demand arriving.

Li-ion batteries are beginning to hit their performance ceiling, especially with regards to energy density. However, a shift in the anode materials used, namely to silicon or lithium-metal anodes, could provide a stepwise improvement to energy density. Their promise can be highlighted by looking at the high number of early-stage companies primarily developing anode materials, most being focussed on silicon, compared to other areas of Li-ion development.

Industrial activities at sea are safer and save valuable real estate. Several separate ideas and projects are coming together as we tackle a number of issues. Transmitting the electricity from single wave, tidal, wind or solar station to shore is very expensive.

Liquid Air Energy Storage (LAES) also called Cryogenic Energy Storage (CES), generically thermal energy storage, employs purified air to store electric energy.

Australia-based Avass Group recently announced that they have signed an agreement with Saudi Arabia to jointly manufacture electric vehicles and lithium batteries.

To save the planet and reduce electricity costs we need to electrify almost everything. For the next twenty years, photovoltaic and wind power will be the dominant energy sources creating electricity.

Northvolt and Volvo Cars will place their first joint battery factory in Gothenburg, Sweden, next to Volvo Cars' assembly plant in Torslanda. The new facility will be operational in 2025.

Ford is the first in the US to offer the ability for customers to power their homes with an electric truck when the grid goes dark, providing innovative new capabilities that enhance the energy independence of its customers.

The 2nd Annual Automotive Thermal Management Online Conference was held on the 20th-21st of January 2022. Whilst the conference is relevant for the automotive industry as a whole, the focus was towards electrification, especially battery-electric vehicles (BEVs) and some content on fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs). In this article we cover the main highlights from talks relating to thermal management for electric vehicles (EVs).

In collaboration with the Portuguese administration, Iberdrola has synchronised the first 220-MW turbine at the Gouvães hydroelectric power plant, delivering clean power to the grid for the first time.The Tâmega complex is one of Europe's largest energy storage facilities with an investment of more than €1.5 billion.