energy storage posts, articles, and infographics

Super Hot Salt: The Newest Energy Storage Innovation?

January 31, 2012 by Joseph Romm
with 705 views

Policymakers and energy industry experts often talk about clean energy as though it isn’t reliable. In fact, while an MIT study recently found the existing grid would probably be up to the challenge of absorbing clean energy, intermittency does present a real challenge that renewables must address to get to high levels of... [read more]

Massive Battery System Captures Wind Power

December 6, 2011 by Silvio Marcacci
with 1,250 views

One of the biggest challenges facing wind energy is intermittency. Wind often blows strongest when power demand is lowest, and weakest when electricity is needed the most. Because today’s power grid needs electricity to be consumed the moment it’s generated, that means wind turbines send energy to the grid half as often as an average coal plant. What if wind farms could store the power that isn’t needed right away and sell it later when demand is high? energyNOW! correspondent Patty Kim visited an energy storage system built alongside a wind farm in the heart of coal country. [read more]

Next-Generation EV Batteries Zap Range Anxiety

November 28, 2011 by Silvio Marcacci
with 590 views

Range anxiety, or concerns about how far electric vehicles will travel on a single charge, is one of the biggest limitations facing the EV industry. In fact, a recent survey said only 20 percent of American drivers would consider buying an EV with a 100-mile range. But what if EVs could drive 500 miles on a single charge? That’s exactly what one of America’s most innovative companies is working on. energyNOW! correspondent Josh Zepps looked under the hood of a next generation battery design that uses nanotechnology to make EVs more powerful than ever. [read more]

Will Wireless Vehicle Charging Become Like EZPass?

November 17, 2011 by Scott Edward Anderson
with 453 views

Image via Wikipedia A rather poor diagram of inductive charging. Qualcomm, long a leader in the wireless and mobile space, is expanding into in the electric vehicle (EV) charging market with its acquisition last week of HaloIPT. The acquisition, reportedly $70 million, has some in the EV charging space scratching their heads. Not... [read more]

Steve Jobs and the Energy Storage Industry

October 17, 2011 by James Greenberger
with 1,149 views

The advanced energy storage industry must focus on making the case for its technology. Technology geeks and policy wonks will never make a market for our products. We need to take the case for energy storage to the consumer. That is what Steve Jobs would do. [read more]

Nico Hotz On Hydrogen Storage For Solar Systems

August 23, 2011 by Benjamin Lack
with 694 views

Nico Hotz, a Duke University researcher, discusses solar power generation research that involves using hydrogen as a vehicle for creating electricity. Full Transcript: Ben Lack: You’ve got some pretty interesting findings on trying to get more generation capacity out of solar panels.What’s the problem that you were trying to... [read more]

Innovation through Coordination: DOE Should Create a BatteryShot Initiative

July 1, 2011 by Matthew Stepp
with 398 views

Earlier this year the Department of Energy (DOE) started the SunShot Initiative – an inter-organizational effort to speed up efforts to make solar energy cheaper than fossil fuels. The initiative harmonizes and refocuses the work and funds of numerous labs and programs working on solar technology.DOE should adopt a... [read more]

Recognizing the Energy Security Value of Storage on the Grid

May 16, 2011 by James Greenberger
with 360 views

Many of the benefits of storage are national in scope and do not, and never will, enter into the cost/benefit analysis that utilities and state regulators make in deciding on energy storage investments. The energy security benefits of storage are, however, very real. Federal energy policy must find a way to recognize those benefits and to share them with the utilities and local ratepayers that are being asked to invest in energy storage systems. If the energy security benefits of storage could be recognized and shared, the $700-750 per kilowatt hour value attributed to storage by EPRI could turn out to be much higher, and the 14 gigawatt market much closer, than assumed. [read more]

A Clean Energy Standard Must Address Peak Load Reduction

April 11, 2011 by James Greenberger
with 567 views

If all a CES does is incentivize the construction of new, clean generation assets and the deployment of additional transmission and distribution infrastructure, it will fail in its essential purpose. Simply building new plants while keeping old polluting ones open creates more environmental degradation rather than reduces it. An effective CES must be part of a broader scheme to retire older generation plants and reduce the amount of infrastructure necessary to generate and transmit the electricity needed by consumers. In short, a CES must be coupled with an energy efficiency standard. [read more]

Uber-batteries: Storage Technology Advancing

March 22, 2011 by Lou Grinzo
with 214 views

There’s been an intriguing, and possibly even useful, advancement in batteries thanks to researchers at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign: Of all the criticisms of electric vehicles, probably the most commonly-heard is that their batteries take too long to recharge – after all, limited range wouldn’t be such a big deal if the... [read more]

Power-Gen International Continues: Day 3

December 16, 2010 by Robert Preston
with 921 views

The 2010 POWER-GEN International conference has warmed up Florida as temperatures are back to normal. Well almost...There were participants still with sweaters and coats listening to speakers talk about energy. Most of the conversations have been about traditional fuels as opposed to newer renewable technologies. This probably had more... [read more]

Scientists: Innovation Needed on Energy Storage, Grid

November 17, 2010 by Jesse Jenkins
with 1,397 views

New innovations in energy storage, transmission, and the integration of variable electricity sources are necessary to enable renewable energy sources to contribute significantly to the U.S. energy supply, according to a new report from the American Physical Society.Establishing national policies to spur the deployment and adoption of... [read more]

Can We Store Solar Energy Indefinitely? MIT Thinks So.

October 28, 2010 by Taylen Peterson
with 1,173 views

It isn’t strictly solar, or at least not the solar we’ve gotten used to (solar PV or thermal), but researchers at MIT have discovered a new way to store the sun’s heat and release it on demand. Its name? The thermo-chemical approach. Experiments show that the process could produce temperatures up to 200 degrees, which according... [read more]

National Strategy For Electric Vehicles Should Focus on Secondary Battery Use

October 24, 2010 by James Greenberger
with 1,150 views

The high cost of advanced batteries is the elephant in the PEV room. Focusing solely on battery research and manufacturing capacity isn’t a strategy; it is just hope. A sound strategy must focus on promoting secondary commercial markets for advanced automotive batteries. [read more]

California’s solar binge continues; enacts energy storage law

October 1, 2010 by Todd Woody
with 481 views

photo: Todd Woody I wrote this story for Grist, where it first appeared. While efforts to pass federal climate change legislation have stalled and a fight rages in California to overturn its global warming law at the ballot box, Golden State regulators have been licensing massive desert solar power plant projects at a breakneck pace in... [read more]