Storage

Seaborg Technologies, a Danish manufacturer of molten salt nuclear reactors, has turned a technology that was originally developed for nuclear power into a large-scale storage solution for wind and solar. It has developed a storage system that uses renewable energy to heat salt with electrical heaters, based on two-tank molten salt storage designs developed for concentrated solar power plants.

After the deluge of announcements last year, 2022 will see the trickle of big batteries actually operating in Australia turn to a flood. According to Rystad Energy, the country’s battery capacity is set to double before the year is out.

Itochu’s new 13.4kWh storage system is equipped with AI-based software for optimal battery control. It can be used for grid-connected and offgrid projects and has a charging feature for electric vehicles.

The New South Wales state government in Australia has revealed that more than 34GW of new solar PV, wind and energy storage projects have been proposed for the South-West Renewable Energy Zone.

Los Alamos National Laboratory researchers developed a new polymer fuel cell that is claimed to solve the long-known issue of overheating. Furthermore, Mexican cement producer Cemex invested in HiiROC, a UK-based hydrogen production startup, which developed a scalable technology that uses thermal plasma electrolysis to convert biomethane, flare gas, or natural gas into hydrogen at a reportedly lower cost than competing solutions.

A pair of researchers from UC San Diego has proposed to precompute certain data when the grid is flooded with solar or wind power, and then store it on servers for later use.

The Western Australian coastal town of Kalbarri can now be powered by an entirely renewable energy solution utilizing rooftop solar and wind generation coupled with battery storage with state government-owned utility Western Power confirming the state’s largest renewable energy microgrid has been commissioned.

Conceived by scientists in China, the device combines an integrated carbon-based perovskite solar cell module with a rechargeable aqueous zinc metal cell. The proposed system achieved an overall efficiency of 6.4%, and a steady operation for more than 200 cycles with little performance degradation.

Queensland company eleXsys Energy has secured more than AUD450,000 to help finance a trial of next-generation technology designed to manage grid stability in low voltage areas, potentially allowing for an increase in the amount of distributed energy resources, including rooftop solar, that can be connected to the grid.

Canadian companies Invinity and Elemental Energy are planning to couple a 21 MW solar plant under development in Alberta with 8.4 MWh of vanadium redox flow battery storage capacity.