Energy Storage

Vanadium and Energy: Rare Earth Metal Market Outlook

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Vanadium is a metal used in the steel, aerospace and energy storage industries – and as with virtually all commodities – the supply, demand and price outlook for this commodity varies depending on who one speaks with.

The energy and metals markets first collided in the 1970’s and 80’s when oil and gas companies looking to expand their businesses merged with mining companies. For example, Union Oil of California (UNOCAL) acquired rare earth miner Molycorp in 1977 – UNOCAL was subsequently acquired by Chevron in 2005, making Molycorp a fully owned subsidiary of the oil giant. Keep reading →

 /  Published July 26, 2012 at 8:30 AM

Plunging EV Battery Prices Seen Boosting Industry

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An expected sharp fall in the price of automotive lithium ion batteries over the next decade could make electric vehicles competitive with conventional cars, raising wide-ranging questions for the future of the electric power and petroleum industries, as well as for car makers, according to a new report from the management consultants McKinsey & Co.

The study predicts prices for the automotive battery packs could drop to about $200 per kilowatt hour by 2020 and $160 by 2025 from $500-$600 currently because of manufacturing economies of scale, lower component prices, and improvements in battery capacity. Keep reading →

 /  Published July 11, 2012 at 9:00 AM

Nuclear Concerns, Policy Fuel California Energy Storage Boom

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California energy regulators believe energy storage capacity could reach up to 8,000 MW by 2020, and could be further accelerated by renewables targets and the ongoing closure of one of two of the state’s nuclear power plants.

Michael Gravely, deputy chief of R&D at the California Energy Commission said he anticipated “fairly substantial amount of increase in services” in energy storage to balance the grid and integrate renewables over the next decade. Keep reading →

 /  Published July 3, 2012 at 8:30 AM

Energy Storage Pioneer: An Exclusive Look into the Fall and Rise of Beacon Power

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The political climate generated by the collapse of Solyndra last year had a “profound impact” on the US pioneer in energy storage, the former chief executive said yesterday.

In exclusive comments to Breaking Energy at the Energy Storage Week Summit in San Jose, California, Bill Capp, the former CEO of Beacon Power, which filed for bankruptcy last October, said: Keep reading →

 /  Published July 2, 2012 at 8:30 AM

Forget Vehicle-to-grid and Think Vehicle-to-home Instead?

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Toyota has followed Nissan with the announcement of a vehicle-to-home (V2H) system that can supply electricity from the car battery to a residence for backup or peak power, according to a story from the Green Car Congress. The program will start testing at the end of this year with about 10 households that will have Prius plug-in hybrid vehicles. An onboard inverter converts stored power into AC for home use.

The idea is to store low-cost, off-peak electricity in the vehicle’s battery and for use by the home during peak consumption times. The power flow is controlled via communication between vehicle, charging stand and a home energy management (HEM) system. The HEM system would need some kind of schedule or signal from the utility to know when to charge and when to send power back. Keep reading →

 /  Published June 13, 2012 at 11:30 AM

California Energy Storage Startup Community Gets State Bridge Across ‘Valley of Death’

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Energy storage technologies – notorious for falling into the infamous financing “valley of death” – are set to get a stronger bridge across the abyss from lab to market in California.

CalCharge, a consortium based in San Francisco’s Bay Area, launched May 29. Keep reading →

 /  Published May 29, 2012 at 2:15 PM

Utilities Engaging Customers in Sustainability

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As advanced information technology continues to permeate the power sector and the two-way data flow between utility and customer deepens, countless opportunities to streamline the delivery and consumption of electricity arise. Across the US, utilities are taking innovative approaches to fostering energy efficient behavior by working with customers to build sustainable practices, programs and business models.

The key is to use all available channels – including social networking – to engage customers with a simple message, you need to “keep [customers] informed and show [them] results,” Bill Andrew, President and CEO of the Delaware Electric Cooperative told audience members at last week’s DNV Kema Utility of the Future Leadership Forum in Washington DC. Keep reading →

 /  Published May 23, 2012 at 11:30 AM

Energy Storage Startups Battle Natural Gas, Looking to Asia and Europe

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Startup Battlefield Finalists pose onstage at Day 3 of TechCrunch Disrupt SF 2011 held at the San Francisco Design Center Concourse on September 14, 2011 in San Francisco, California.

Low natural gas prices in the US have slowed momentum in the development of grid-level energy storage solutions, an expert panel gathered from venture capital, power generation and utility companies said last week. Keep reading →

 /  Published May 15, 2012 at 9:00 AM

Storage Coming of Age

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Energy storage is moving out of the laboratory and into the world of project finance, but how long that evolution will take is in question.

Experts told the Energy Storage Association’s annual conference in Washington DC last week that storage is at a “tipping point.” While storage is being incorporated into some operating projects, the technology is still struggling for recognition of its role, and financing remains a high hurdle. Keep reading →

 /  Published May 8, 2012 at 8:00 AM

Storage Technology Investment An RPS Priority

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Allowing power from electricity storage to be counted toward meeting renewable portfolio standards would boost integration of advanced storage technologies into the electricity system, speakers told the Electricity Storage Association conference in Washington last week.

Terry Boston, CEO of PJM, the nation’s largest grid operator, said he’d like to see states let up to 25% of their RPS be met with storage when the storage systems are fed by clean sources like wind and solar. Keep reading →

 /  Published May 7, 2012 at 3:00 PM
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