Energy Storage

MIT Professor Dr. Ernest Moniz made his pledge at the full committee hearing held this Tuesday, which will eventually decide if he is the man to take over as U.S. Secretary of Energy. The fact the U.S. is not spending enough on energy research was highlighted during the Q&A session. Moniz added that more focus needs to be placed on solar.

The smart grid market in central and eastern Europe (CEE) will be worth a cumulative $10.3 billion by 2023, according to a report by market research group Northeast Group LLC.

EnStorage Inc. has developed the first ever grid-connected hydrogen-bromine (HBr) flow battery with its 50 kW battery connection at the company’s test site in southern Israel. The battery is said to provide up to 100 kWh of storage capacity.

Germany managed to export more power in 2012 than it has in the last five years. With a net surplus of 22.8 terawatt-hours (TWh), the exported amount of energy was four times as much as that in 2011. This data was released by the Federal Statistical Office in Wiesbaden in Hesse.

The first stage of the U.K.’s largest smart grid project has returned results indicating that consumers are ready to embrace Time of Use (TOU) electricity tariffs, if they stand to benefit from lower electricity charges.

Apple has managed to up its renewable energy utilization by 114% from 2010, according to the new environment report released by the company. As one of the top global brands, the corporate giant’s goal is to power every Apple facility with renewable energy.

Plant and grid operators start a progressive pilot project for better grid integration. This was presented at the “PV System Technology Forum” in Düsseldorf, Germany.

Research and consulting firm GlobalData’s latest report shows that the global microgrid market will be worth US$18.9 billion in 2020. This will be a significant increase from the US$5.3 billion reaped in 2012.

Germany’s Federal Environment Minister is still advocating PV storage incentives from May onwards. However the funding issue remains unresolved. Peter Altmaier also mentioned at the Energy Storage conference in Düsseldorf that he expects more than 4 GW of PV development in Germany this year.

The utility-scale advanced battery market in the Asia Pacific region will amount to 25.1 GW of storage and be worth US$12 billion in 2022, according to a report by Pike Research.