Energy Storage

Scientists at Germany’s Helmholtz Zentrum Berlin have made a discovery they say could greatly increase the energy storage capacity of titanium-based ‘MXene’ pseudocapacitors, ultimately leading to faster-charging batteries. The group found adding urea molecules between MXene layers increased the material’s storage capacity by up to 56%.

The OneBox, from Indian manufacturer Vision Mechatronics, consists of a lithium battery, hybrid inverter and solar charge controller to give a ‘hassle-free’ solution for electricity back-up during power outages. Solar rooftop owners are offered a grid feed feature to maximize net metering income from any excess power generated.

As the contagion continues to spread, its impact is beginning to be felt on the solar industry outside China with the cancellation or postponement of major trade shows and conferences that were set to take place over the next few weeks.

Spanish gas provider Enagás has signed an agreement with Ampere Energy for the joint development of several hydrogen production R&D projects with PV and storage. The first installation will be deployed at a gas plant in Cartagena, in the southern Spanish region of Murcia.

The annual trade show was not particularly well-attended this year, but market sentiment is still positive in Japan – nobody believes that installations will drop due to the coronavirus outbreak. And the country’s upstream industry – modules, batteries, and hydrogen tech – clearly remains compelling, given the number of brave souls who actually did make the trip out to Tokyo Big Sight this year.

With the new decade, pv magazine brings forth yet another energy storage highlights. Approximately two weeks of work went into sifting through this year’s 22 highlights submissions, conducting research, and preparing them for the jury. Once again, this year’s work was crowned by the moderation of the jury meeting, in which six leading industry experts discussed the technologies and solutions. Differing from previous years, the jurors have selected the top five “Gigawatt” winners, followed by five “Megawatt” winners, and a series of “Finalists” which we are publishing here, leading up to Energy Storage Europe.

Researchers at MIT say the immense hydropower resources of the Canadian province could be used as storage to even out the supply of intermittent renewables generation in New England and New York state.

Australian researchers have compiled data from 173 studies which examined homeowner behavior when buying rooftop PV and identified 333 predictors related to the attitude, knowledge, tendency, awareness, willingness and intent of householders.

As the sector continues to grow rapidly, delays in manufacturing scale-ups, difficulties sourcing raw materials and a separate path taken by the electric vehicle sector could all chuck ‘sand in the gears’, according to analyst Wood Mackenzie.

Solid-state batteries are viewed by many as the most promising technology to succeed today’s lithium-ion technologies in many energy storage applications. But there are still plenty of barriers to large-scale use of this type of battery. An international team of scientists has reviewed recent progress with the technology, and examined the form and chemistry that commercial solid-state batteries might take.