Energy Storage

A Spanish scientist has developed a system that reportedly produces hydrogen on-site without expensive electrolysis. The prototype utilizes a water tank that is initially filled with water, ferrosilicon, and sodium hydroxide.

South Australia’s 150 MW / 193.5 Hornsdale Power Reserve, more commonly known as the Tesla Big Battery, will now provide inertia services to Australia’s National Electricity Market after securing approval from the Australian Energy Market Operator. Neoen says it is the first big battery in the world to deliver the service at such a scale.

A home battery paired with rooftop solar can provide backup power during rolling blackouts, shift power usage schedules to avoid peak demand charges, among other benefits.

Attendees at the Renpower Kenya clean energy event in Nairobi were told there will be a changeover in incentive schemes in 2022 with mature technologies no longer benefiting from fixed payments.

The project is located 10 km from the Baltic Sea, where PGE is planning to build offshore wind farms with a total capacity of 3.5 GW.

The Australian Capital Territory government has firmed its commitment to deliver one of the largest battery storage systems in the Southern Hemisphere to support Canberra’s energy grid and the continued uptake of renewables with funding allocated in the upcoming budget to progress the Big Canberra Battery project.

In other news, Toyota unveiled plans to roll out light-duty hydrogen fuel-cell trucks for the Japanese market next year and the UK has launched a contract for difference scheme for large scale hydrogen projects. Furthermore, Japanese scientists have designed a ruthenium complex with a nitrogen-containing organic compound to improve high-temperature proton conduction in fuel cells.

Spanish scientists developed a proton exchange membrane fuel cell with a bipolar plate based on a nature-inspired structure. This architecture, according to its creators, shows remarkable performance when operating at high relative humidity values of 90%.

Researchers in the United Arab Emirates have compared the performance of compressed air storage and lead-acid batteries in terms of energy stored per cubic meter, costs, and payback period. They found the former has a considerably lower Capex and a payback time of only two years.

EPRO Advance Technology has developed new silicon materials for hydrogen production, while Helmholtz-Zentrum Hereon researchers have shown that hydrogen storage materials can be produced from recycled industrial waste.