UFO Energy Official Blog

ENERGY giant AGL will install  solar batteries  on 1000 homes across Adelaide, building a ‘virtual power plant’ to provide back-up electricity to householders and the state’s energy grid during times of high energy demand. In what is expected to be the largest project of its kind in the world, the batteries will store excess solar power that would otherwise be fed into the grid and will be able to be drawn upon by the customer, reducing their power costs and demand on the grid. AGL will also have the ability to direct power from the battery to the customer’s home or into the grid during critical events such as peak demand resulting from severe weather. Any solar energy exported to the grid will occur at the agreed retail feed in tariff. The system will generate a peak capacity of 5MW, or, according to AGL figures, the equivalent of the average annual power consumption of one home. The first of the 7.7kW batteries, to be subsidised through AGL and the federal Australian Renewable En

The solid-state batteries that are on the market today are thin-film batteries, which, on account of their limited capacity, can only be used for micro-storage, for example to provide power for sensors. But as a result of innovations in materials and architecture, solid-state  batteries  may soon be used also for large storage systems, for example for electric cars or the smart grid.  The development of solid-state electrolytes with high Li-ion conductivity is an important link in achieving that aim. At imec, a nano-composite electrolyte has been developed which can bring solid-state batteries one step closer to the market. This article comes from http://www.storagebattery-factory.com/news/Solid-State-Batteries-For-Grid.html.

The first aircraft powered solely by the sun made a historic landing in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday, completing the 25,000 mile, round-the-world journey that began in March 2015. The Swiss-engineered Solar Impulse 2 was piloted by Bertrand Piccard on the final part of its epic expedition that took off from Cairo earlier this week. The last stop completes its 17-leg, milestone journey using only the power of the sun's rays. The lightweight aircraft, which weighs the same as an SUV but has the wingspan of a Boeing 747, is the brainchild of Piccard and Bertrand Borschberg, a Swiss engineer and businessman. The aircraft is a single-seater, so the two men have shared the flying by taking different legs of the journey. "What I'd like to show with my team is that clean technology today is showing incredible goals. You can fly now longer without fuel than with fuel, and you fly with the force of nature, you fly with the sun. It's the new era now for energy and this is really what

Harvard University researchers reckon they can make flow batteries cheaper using an electrolyte based on vitamin B2. Flow batteries function much like lead-acid batteries, with a fluid that reacts with electrodes to store charge. However, the liquid is cycled through an external tank in the charge/discharge cycle. The external “refresh” of a flow battery's fluid means it can handle very deep discharges, while lead acid batteries have to be kept above 50 per cent charge. For a static application like storage from solar power, that makes flow batteries an attractive third alternative to both lead acid and  lithium batteries . Harvard's research is on improving the electrolyte, so the external tanks can store more energy per unit of volume, and that's where the vitamin B2 molecule comes in. The university had previously worked on naturally-occurring quinones in the electrolyte; B2 is similar, they say, but uses nitrogen as the electron carrier. The important molecule in B2 i

LG Chem, the South Korean company with the biggest share of the grid-connected battery storage market in Australia, has released its new generation systems, promising they will offer more choice, and be cheaper, smaller, lighter, and with improved aesthetics. LG Chem, which claims nearly half of the nascent but rapidly growing Australian grid-connected market, is offering low voltage and high voltage options to Australian households, with its new battery storage systems ranging from a stackable 3.3kWh lithium-ion system to a 9.8kWh system. The three low-voltage battery systems (48 volt) are being offered in 3.3kWh, 6.5kWh and 9.9kWh units, while 7kWh and 9.8kWh high voltage (400 volt) battery systems are also being offered. The new series of battery storage systems will be offered globally but will be launched in Australia first as it remains the most attractive market for  battery storage  because of its high electricity prices, tariff structure, high levels of rooftop solar (now

Elon Musk’s plan for Tesla Motors Inc. to acquire SolarCity Corp. hinges on a symbiosis that doesn’t exist. At least not yet. The key to the proposed $2.86 billion takeover is combining Tesla’s electric cars and wall-mounted  battery units  with SolarCity’s rooftop panels, letting homeowners store solar power to use at night. Here’s the catch: Creating this end-to-end energy company would negate the main financial incentive for rooftop panels. Utilities let consumers sell power into the grid at rates generous enough to cover most or all of their utility bills. That benefit, known as net metering, loses its value when electricity is instead squirreled away in a Tesla battery. Musk has said the combination will make economic sense within five years. “The value proposition for solar plus storage is at odds with net metering,’’ said Ravi Manghani, director of energy storage at GTM Research. Tesla announced the friendly offer to acquire SolarCity June 21, and the solar company’s board is

By 2021, electricity use in the west Los Angeles area may be in for a climate change-fighting evolution. For many years, the tradition has been that on midsummer afternoons, engineers will turn on what they call a “peaker,” a natural gas-burning power plant In Long Beach. It is needed to help the area’s other power plants meet the day’s peak electricity consumption. Thus, as air conditioners max out and people arriving home from work turn on their televisions and other appliances, the juice will be there. Five years from now, if current plans work out, the “peaker” will be gone, replaced by the world’s largest  storage battery , capable of holding and delivering over 100 megawatts of power an hour for four hours. The customary afternoon peak will still be there, but the battery will be able to handle it without the need for more fossil fuels. It will have spent the morning charging up with cheap solar power that might have otherwise been wasted. Early the next morning, the battery wi