Energy Storage

Two projects in the northern region of the African nation are set to bring 36 MW of solar and 20 MW/19 MWh of storage online, with the first facilities due to start generating within days.

A U.S.-Israeli consortium is developing synchroinverters – inverters that mimic a synchronous generator and are able to actively respond to the grid’s frequency changes while stabilizing the voltage. The new devices are expected to do this simultaneously and provide grid stability services in less than 16.67 milliseconds.

The project consists of an 8 M W solar PV plant that is scheduled to be operational in 2022 and a 12 MW wind farm that will be commissioned in 2023. Both facilities will be connected to an 8.25 MW battery and will cover 60% of the annual electricity consumption of the Fort-Dauphin mine, located in the south of the island.

Developed by Canada-based Hydrogen Optimized, the electrolyzer can be used to stabilize electrical grids and optimize energy recovery from intermittent renewable power sources such as solar and wind. Furthermore, this week four more big international partnerships for developing green hydrogen were announced across Germany, the Middle East, and Australia.

The lack of proper business models, high upfront costs, and long payback periods are the key barriers to enabling the wider adoption of solar-powered heat pumps, according to recent research. Other factors reducing market acceptance are a lack of information on the technology and sociodemographic factors like public perception and peer effects.

A research team at China’s Soochow University has used hydrogen-bonded organic frameworks to make sodium-ion batteries even more sustainable and affordable while prolonging their lifespan to over 10,000 cycles.

An Italian company has developed a system that can store energy from wind, solar and grid electricity by compressing and using CO2 without any emissions. The system draws CO2 from an inflatable atmospheric gas holder, stores it, and uses it to produce power again, when demand for stored energy arises.

Two different technological developments were announced this week for concentrated solar power technology. In Australia, a consortium led by Vast Solar filed a patent for a new tank design for thermal energy storage systems. And in the United States, Heliogen announced the rollout of robots to install and clean projects.

A lack of end-of-life batteries this decade is likely to play into the hands of Chinese recyclers located near most of the world’s production facilities, according to analyst WoodMac, but might at least help rebalance the current situation in which new products are cheaper than recycled ones.

A spokesperson for London-based installer Winch said the subsidized, $0.29/kWh electricity the networks will offer to villagers is the lowest price for such a system anywhere in the world.