Energy Storage

Pike Research’s Brittany E. Gibson is confident that emerging cleantech markets for batteries, especially for transportation and stationary applications, will be viable new markets in ten years.

Falling prices and consolidation will remain in 2013, predicts IHS. Despite this, photovoltaic installations are expected to grow, the demand-supply balance is likely to be restored and China is set to become the biggest global solar market. Overall, the research company has laid out 10 predictions for the coming year.

The EU has announced more than €1.2 billion (US$1.6 billion) of funding for renewable generation projects, including more than €200 million for concentrated solar power (CSP) projects in Greece and Cyprus, and €8.2 million for a smart grid scheme in Belgium.

The Center for Solar Energy and Hydrogen Research (ZSW) has inaugurated a 250 kW power to gas research plant with a possible methane production of up to 300 cubic meters per day. This makes it the largest plant of its kind in the world.

A lot that needs to be done to enable the transition towards larger shares of renewables in the power mix. The 5th International Conference on Integration of Renewable Energy and Distributed Energy Resources, which opened today in Berlin, Germany, brought together global participants from the energy sector to discuss the transformation of the power system, the challenges that lie ahead and the solutions.

A team led by Argonne National Lab has been selected for an award of up to US$120 million to establish a new Batteries and Energy Storage Hub over five years.

With QBotix having secured US$1 million and Stion $2 million from the U.S. Energy Department’s SunShot initiative, a further seven projects to secure support in the current round of funding focus on PV, storage and grid integration.

IEEE announced today the release of a new report that they commissioned. The report details how energy storage, distributed generation and microgrid technologies stand to evolve given the rapid deployment of the smart grid across the globe over the next five years.

AEG Power Solutions has signed an agreement with energy storage and clean fuel company, ITM Power. The companies will cooperate on integrating ITM Power’s electrolyser with AEG PS’s power control electronics.

Siemens Infrastructure & Cities and the municipal utility SWK STADTWERKE KREFELD AG (SWK) are working together to transform the existing power grid in a municipality in North Rhine-Westphalia. The project “Wachtendonk is doing its part – Researching the grid” is seen as a testbed to boost smart grid solutions, something essential for Germany’s new energy policy.