battery

Researchers from Deakin University in Australia claim their battery chemistry is based on a new class of electrolyte material which carries no risk of uncontrolled thermal events and represents a viable alternative to rechargeable lithium-ion batteries.

U.S. researchers claim to have added iron sulfate to anthraquinone disulfonic acid in a redox flow battery for the first time. The scientists said the combination could lead to inexpensive and more stable redox flow storage for just $54/kWh and said $66/kWh is already possible.

With its sonnenVPP, German battery company Sonnen wants to improve the efficiency of virtual power plants which it says can offer primary balancing energy from houses with solar and storage and can operate up to 90% more cost-effectively.

As Chinese PV manufacturers are now on the way to fully utilizing their production capacities, it is becoming increasingly clear how much coronavirus containment measures will affect global demand. Wood Mackenzie expects a decline in residential PV demand and a shift in investment to commercial projects, which is why it now only expects 106 GW of capacity additions this year.

French renewable energy developer Neoen plans to develop a massive battery storage system near the Australian city of Geelong that will dwarf its largest project to date, the 100MW/129MWh Tesla big battery in South Australia.

A French-Turkish research team has created an economic model to optimize scheduling for solar-powered EV charging units. The proposed model suggests that such projects might be more profitable today than at the end of the decade, depending on a wide range of variables.

National utility Transpower said that solar could take a 9.3% share of the country’s generation mix by the middle of the century. However, real growth is only forecast to occur from 2035, with distributed generation expected to account for more than 80% of total installed PV.

The German manufacturer has started to produce its first commercial storage systems at its new plant under strict safety precautions due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. The facility’s current annual capacity is set at 255 MWh, but the company aims to eventually expand that to 1 GWh.

Australian company Infinity Lithium has signed a memorandum of understanding with the European Battery Alliance to promote its lithium mine project in San José, Extremadura. It would be the first lithium project to obtain European financing but has already raised the hackles of local environmentalists and residents.

A hot energy topic with little coordinated analysis, green hydrogen has finally attracted the number crunchers of BloombergNEF.