Distributed Storage

Australia’s national science agency has identified a potential $3.1 billion industry that is there for the taking with the increasing penetration of renewables in grids nationwide sparking substantial growth in the battery energy storage sector.

Scientists investigating the aging mechanisms affecting today’s lithium-ion batteries observed that the loss of lithium over time is one of the main causes of performance loss. With this in mind, they developed and tested a “relithiation” process that promises to eliminate much of the cost and complexity from recycling battery components and materials.

Silicon Valley-based start-up Gridtential has secured US$12 million (AU$15.5m) in funds to develop what it calls the world’s first factory-ready, single-block, 24V, deep-cycle lead battery. The product is claimed to be ideal for personal mobility vehicles and renewable energy storage in homes and offices.

Recommendations by the NSW Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal will see payback times for solar systems extended, but also favour battery uptake.

Owners and operators of energy storage systems, as well as investors, need transparent ways to evaluate battery performance. They need certainty that the selected batteries for their ESS projects will perform reliably, have predictable life expectancies, and meet projected revenue and contractual obligations over their lifetimes. The economic viability of entire projects depend on this confidence, writes Michael Kleinberg of DNV.

The Chinese manufacturer will begin selling its new products in Australia and Europe. The hybrid inverter has an efficiency of up to 98.4% and the lithium iron phosphate battery features a storage capacity between 9.6 kWh and 102.4 kWh, depending on the number of modules.

Scientists in the UK used the latest imaging techniques to visualize and understand the process of dendrite formation and electrolyte cracking in an all solid-state battery. With new insight into the mechanisms by which these cracks form and ultimately lead to battery failure, the results could help direct the focus of future research into solid-state battery technology.

In an earnings call, the company said that storage deployments grew 71% YoY and solar installations were its strongest in 2.5 years.

The ‘Graphene Revolution’ is drawing near in energy storage, the sector where it is arguably needed most. Univeristy of Queensland scientists who devised aluminium-ion batteries with graphene electrodes have teamed up with Brisbane-based Graphene Manufacturing Group to push the technology into the commercial prototype phase, a potentially early marker for a technology that could transform energy storage.

Microgrids afford an opportunity to essentially become a power station operator. That opportunity, says Dr Adrian Panow, the Director of Deakin’s Energy Initiative, unearths a number of urgent questions ranging from the technical all the way to the ethical. They are questions cross-faculty researchers at Deakin University, now home to a sizeable microgrid, plan to interrogate.