Tesla’s Powerwall Is the Latest Step Toward Our Clean-Energy Future. Tesla’s Powerwall Is the Latest Step Toward Our Clean-Energy Future Most people are skeptical that we’re heading into a clean-energy future. They find it hard to believe that solar energy is fewer than 14 years away from meeting 100 percent of today’s energy needs. They argue that today solar energy hardly provides one percent of Earth’s energy needs and that we can’t effectively store sunlight — and therefore have a long way to go. But when technologies advance exponentially as solar is doing, one percent solar means we are halfway from 0.01 percent to the goal of 100 percent. The prices of solar panels have fallen 75 percent in the past five years and are advancing on a scale comparable to Moore’s Law, as tech guru Ramez Naam has documented. At this rate, solar energy is only six doublings away from 100 percent. Even then we will use hardly 1/10,000th of the sunlight that falls on Earth, so we can increase our usage dramatically without fear of running out.
Image Credit: Tesla. Tesla gearing up for release of batteries for the home. The same lithium-ion battery technology that powers Tesla’s electric vehicles will be used to develop a battery for the home, according to a statement by CEO Elon Musk during a recent conference call with analysts. The batteries would be used by homes and businesses to store excess energy generated from solar panels during the day, and drawn from at night when panels sit idle. Official details of the project are still a ways off. When we contacted them, Tesla said they’re currently not sharing any additional information about their energy storage and home batteries for several months.
What Musk did reveal during the conference call was that "we’re going to unveil the Tesla home battery, or consumer battery, that will be for use in people’s houses or businesses, fairly soon. " Adding that, "we have the design done and it should start going into production probably in about six months or so. One area where Tesla might stand out is in cost. Sources: Tesla, SolarCity energy storage Share. Battery Performance Is Hurting Hawaii’s Solar Push.
The prospect of cheaper, petroleum-free power has lured the Kauai Island Utility Cooperative (KIUC) to quintuple utility-scale solar capacity over the past year, building two 12-megawatt photovoltaic arrays. These facilities are the biggest and a significant contributor to the island’s 78-megawatt peak power supply. When the second plant comes online this summer, peak solar output on Kauai will approach 80 percent of power generation on some days, according to Brad Rockwell, the utility’s power supply manager.
That puts Kauai on the leading edge of solar power penetration, and KIUC has bruises to show for it. Power fluctuations from a first large plant installed in 2012 have already largely burned out the big batteries installed to keep solar from destabilizing the island’s grid. Now KIUC is taking a second try with batteries and hoping energy storage technology has progressed sufficiently to keep the same problems from recurring. The solar plant in Anahola is nearing completion. Brain scan: Tesla’s electric man. PUT your foot down in a Tesla Model S and the experience is rather different to other cars.
The usual exhaust roar is replaced by a hushed whooshing sound as the car accelerates rapidly—and relentlessly—thanks to the high torque of an electric motor making gear changes unnecessary because there is no gearbox. And inside, instead of multiple dials and switches, a large touchscreen dominates the centre console. Established carmakers have tended to make modest electric vehicles, usually small ones to eke out the range available from their pricey batteries. But it was Tesla, a Silicon Valley startup, which realised that many early adopters of new technologies are likely to be well heeled and would prefer a large high-performance saloon that is both luxurious and extremely high-tech.
Why did Tesla act differently? For a start, it does not think of itself as a carmaker. Mr Straubel’s captivation with energy storage is understandable. The electric Porsche Teslas were always going to be unique. No Outlet, No Problem: This New Technology Could Power Your Gadgets Wirelessly | Innovation. New Li-ion anode achieves 70 percent charge in just two minutes. Researchers at the Nanyang Technological University (NTU) in Singapore have developed a new, proof-of-concept anode for lithium-ion batteries that can charge to 70 percent of its capacity in only two minutes and has a very long lifespan of ten thousand charge/discharge cycles. The advance could lead to the production of high-rate lithium-ion batteries, with interesting implications for personal electronics and, perhaps, even electric vehicles.
View all Lithium-ion batteries owe their popularity to their ability to store large amounts of energy into a relatively small and light package; however, they can take a fairly long time to charge. This is largely due to the limitations of the battery anode, which is usually made of graphite. A team of scientists led by Professor Chen Xiaodong has developed a proof-of-concept battery anode that addresses both these problems at the same time. The technology is being licensed for mass-production, which Prof. Source: Nanyang Technological University. New "dual carbon" battery charges 20 times faster than Li-ion. Japanese company Power Japan Plus has announced the development and planned mass-production of "Ryden," a disruptive carbon battery that can be charged 20 times faster than an ordinary lithium-ion cell. The battery, which is cheap to manufacture, safe, and environmentally friendly, could be ideal to improve the range and charging times of electric cars.
View all We've seen electric cars and motorbikes make huge strides forward in recent years. Up to a few years ago, electric vehicles were a synonym of peculiar designs, poor performance, and very low range; but now, more and more people associate them with instant torque and high performance. Further improving range, charging time, and cost would make electric vehicles an even more compelling product. A new battery developed by Power Japan and Kyushu University promises that – and more. The battery employs carbon for both electrodes (Image: Power Japan Plus) The battery would also be highly sustainable, as it is fully recyclable. Share. News || PowerjapanPlus. Power Japan Plus Reveals New Ryden Dual Carbon Battery New battery design balances the need for cost competitive energy storage that is energy dense, reliable, safe and sustainable SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. — May 13, 2014 — Power Japan Plus today launched a new battery technology – the Ryden dual carbon battery.
This unique battery offers energy density comparable to a lithium ion battery, but over a much longer functional lifetime with drastically improved safety and cradle-to-cradle sustainability. The Ryden battery makes use of a completely unique chemistry, with both the anode and the cathode made of carbon. “Power Japan Plus is a materials engineer for a new class of carbon material that balances economics, performance and sustainability in a world of constrained resources,” said Dou Kani, CEO of Power Japan Plus. . ➢ High Performance – energy dense and charges 20 times faster than lithium ion batteries. . ➢ Safe – safest high performance battery chemistry ever developed. Nanodot-based smartphone battery that recharges in 30 seconds. I think this has a wide range of uses and a lot of potential. It would make hybrids use electric power more than the gas engine.
It would be a boost for anything that is battery powered. BigGoofyGuy 7th April, 2014 @ 5:53 a.m. (California Time) This huge, woohoo if they can make large units for storing solar energy cheaply and cleanly. Cheap batteries will revolutionise the renewable energy market | Chris Huhne. News this week, from opposite ends of the planet, that points to the convulsion of change about to hit the global economy. The first report came from Palo Alto, California, headquarters of the Tesla electric car company. Tesla's car produces no carbon emissions (so long as the electricity that charges its batteries is also low carbon). Tesla's chief executive, Elon Musk, announced it would invest in a $4bn-$5bn "gigafactory" doubling the world's production of lithium-ion batteries.
These power your mobile phone, but also Tesla's high-end luxury electric cars. Since battery cost is the main obstacle to electric cars, this is potentially game-changing. Tesla is treading the route first mapped by Henry Ford, whose mass production of the Model T halved the price of US cars. Nor is scale the only likely development in batteries. Most fundamentally, it will make the transition to low-carbon electricity far easier. This matters. Disruptive change is a constant feature of capitalism. Battery Advance Could Help Solve Renewable Energy Intermittency. Utilities would love to be able to store the power that wind farms generate at night—when no one wants it—and use it when demand is high during the day. But conventional battery technology is so expensive that it only makes economic sense to store a few minutes of electricity, enough to smooth out a few fluctuations from gusts of wind.
Harvard University researchers say they’ve developed a new type of battery that could make it economical to store a couple of days of electricity from wind farms and other sources of power. The new battery, which is described in the journal Nature, is based on an organic molecule—called a quinone—that’s found in plants such as rhubarb and can be cheaply synthesized from crude oil. The molecules could reduce, by two-thirds, the cost of energy storage materials in a type of battery called a flow battery, which is particularly well suited to storing large amounts of energy. In a flow battery, energy is stored in liquid form in large tanks. Holistic cell design leads to high-performance, long cycle-life lithium-sulfur battery. Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have demonstrated in the laboratory a lithium-sulfur (Li/S) battery that has more than twice the specific energy of lithium-ion batteries, and that lasts for more than 1,500 cycles of charge-discharge with minimal decay of the battery's capacity.
This is longest cycle life reported so far for any lithium-sulfur battery. Demand for high-performance batteries for electric and hybrid electric vehicles capable of matching the range and power of the combustion engine encourages scientists to develop new battery chemistries that could deliver more power and energy than lithium-ion batteries, currently the best performing battery chemistry in the marketplace. For electric vehicles to have a 300-mile range, the battery should provide a cell-level specific energy of 350 to 400 Watt-hours/kilogram (Wh/kg). The results were reported in the journal Nano Letters. To understand the potential of Tesla, look to the forest, not the trees. The bulk of the attention on Tesla recently has been squarely centered on the trees: Tesla’s quarterly earnings, its stock dive and weekly volatility, the three accidents that have led to fires. But don’t forget the forest: Tesla’s Model S has been a big success, and it’s part of a long term evolution that will allow Tesla to eventually deliver its third-generation, mainstream electric car.
Finding success with that monumental project will be even more difficult than it was with the Model S, yet it will be even more of a revolutionary step toward moving the world off of gasoline-powered cars. Think about it this way — the success of the Model S is like when the San Francisco Giants came back from a losing streak and won three division series games in a row to beat the Reds in the 2012. It was jaw-dropping, exciting and the Giants survived that all-odds-against-them series and got to go onto the World Series. A solid start Tesla Model X with falcon wings fully open Now for the triple lutz. The first 3D-printed battery is as tiny as a grain of sand. Imagine a computer so small it could slip through the human bloodstream. At just a millimeter in width, a new battery built by a Harvard University and University of Illinois team is perfectly suited to be a power source for tiny computers.
It is also the first battery to ever be fabricated with a 3D printer. The team used a custom printer and ink to produce the batteries. A nozzle .03 millimeters–or 30 microns–wide deposited layers of nanoparticle-packed paste in a comb-like shape. A second printed comb nestled into the first, their teeth interlocked. These functioned as the two halves of electrodes, which conduct electricity. After printing, the electrode layers quickly hardened and were placed in a small container filled with solution. A battery like this could transform fields like robotics, which are limited by how small they can build product by currently available materials. Co-author Jennifer Lewis mentioned Harvard’s Robobees–tiny autonomous drones–as a potential application. USU Researchers Trial Wireless Charging of Electric Bus. Charging system is quite forgiving of air gap, misalignment with charging pad Utah State University's Wireless Power Transfer team has applied "a mix of modern advances in engineering and Nikola Tesla's principles of induction" to create a unique mass transport electric vehicle, the Aggie Bus.
While the Aggie Bus at first blush is just a battery-electric conversion of a standard passenger bus, it has a pretty unique trick. Professor Hunter Wu's team of faculty and student researchers, along with engineers at the Utah Science Technology and Research (USTAR) initiative's Advanced Transportation Institute at USU, created wireless power transfer (WPT) pads that charge the bus as it reaches stops. The pads can deliver up to 5 kilowatts at 90-percent electrical transfer efficiency, over a 10-inch airgap. The charger also maintains that efficiency even if the bus is "off" (misaligned) with the charging pad by up to six inches.
The Aggie Bus, an EV bus with inductive charging [Image Source: USU] WAVE | We solve the battery problem. Texas mega-battery aims to green up the grid - tech - 01 February 2013. IN A remote corner of west Texas, in the shadow of a sprawling wind farm, one of the world's largest batteries was switched on last week. Deep in oil country, the battery is at the vanguard of efforts to help renewable energy sources realise their potential and, ultimately, oust fossil fuels in the US.
Built for energy giant Duke Energy by local start-up Xtreme Power, the array is the biggest and fastest battery in the world. It can deliver 36 megawatts of wind power to the grid over a period of 15 minutes. The battery's job is to act as a buffer, smoothing out the supply of electricity from the 153 MW Notrees wind farm nearby. It also makes the entire grid more resilient to spikes in demand, because battery arrays can respond almost instantly, whereas natural gas power plants take about 15 minutes to boost their output. Most of the other DOE-funded projects look very different. These facilities are far too small to have a direct impact on how energy is generated and stored in the US.