Energy Storage

Brenmiller’s bGen system heat crushes rocks and then stores that thermal energy for minutes, hours, or days. The stored heat energy can be used to produce energy in the form of steam for electricity, water, or hot air for industrial applications.

Israeli developer Tigi Solar is deploying an industrial heat pump to support the heating system at the facility of a food industry enterprise in Israel. The heat pump has an output of 780 kW and a coefficient of performance (COP) of 4.6. It uses existing ammonia chiller waste heat as the heat source and can reportedly provide a hot water temperature of 65 C.

Engineers at Melbourne’s RMIT University have developed a rechargeable “proton battery” that has the potential to store more energy than currently available lithium-ion batteries.

Drax Group said it will expand the pumped hydro storage capacity of the Cruachan Power Station by another 600 MW to 1,044 MW. However, the project will require greater policy support.

AES Indiana filed for a 200 MW/800 MWh battery project, which is slated to be the largest in the US state of Indiana. It will be located at the site of a partially decommissioned multi-unit coal plant that is now transitioning to gas.

Clever-PV has developed a manufacturer-independent energy management solution for homes. The app is free to download from app stores and can be connected to PV systems, wall boxes, heat pumps, and other smart devices. This allows users to optimize the use of self-generated solar power.

Scientists in Italy have developed a 5 kW direct-expansion solar-assisted heat pump that uses alternatively two different evaporator technologies. The cooling of the PV module unit by CO2 evaporation increases power production by 8%.

Researchers in China have found that the addition of serine cations to the electrode/electrolyte interface of aqueous zinc-ion battery could effectively inhibit zinc dendrite growth and enable a highly reversible zinc anode.

Researchers in Canada have found that nearly zero-energy buildings (NZEBs) with on-site solar energy generation should not exceed an energy use intensity (EUI) of 50 kWh/m2a, which they said corresponds to a maximum of 10 floors. They also ascertained that the maximum permitted EUI by net-zero energy status is 17–28 kWh/m2a.

Researchers at Argonne National Laboratory and the US National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL) have found that renewable energy can reduce the cost and emissions of electricity in remote parts of Alaska.