General Electric Unveils Breakthrough Energy Storage Tech

Source : ChetaSheet

General Electric (NYSE:GE) has unveiled what is being lauded as breakthrough energy storage technology in the form of the new Durathon Battery to power an underground vehicle that transports mining materials. What makes this breakthrough technology is that it represents an energy storage system that should help develop cleaner, faster, and more efficient mining machinery.

Specifically, the new Durathon Battery says companies who apply it will save significant amounts in operating costs due to the 50 percent reduction in weight, 25 percent reduction in size, and 40 percent reduction in operating range in comparison to traditional batteries.

The new battery is also cleaner because it contains no lead acid materials, eliminating the release of gases when charging, as well as removing the explosive fuel sources underground and reducing miner exposure to diesel particulate matter.

The initiative is a joint development between GE Mining and GE’s Energy Storage, two businesses withinGE Transportation, and it was tested through application in GE’s Invertex underground mining propulsion system at Coal River Energy, LLC.

“We’re encouraged by the test at Coal River Energy and see GE’s Durathon battery technology as a long-term solution for our mining customers,” Prescott Logan, general manager of GE Energy Storage, said in apress release. ”With the Invertex underground propulsion system and our state-of-the-art energy storage solution, GE Mining will deliver higher efficiency and productivity to mining customers worldwide while lowering fuel use, emissions and life-cycle cost.”

“The scoop performed well and we are eager to see the final product,” said Carl Estep, maintenance manager at Coal River Energy, LLC. “The lightweight, high density battery’s ability to reduce maintenance and charging time while allowing for easier maneuverability will provide advantages over today’s lead-acid scoops.”

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Mumbaikars can hire electric cars from October

Source: THE TIMES OF INDIA

MUMBAI: Citizens will be able to rent electric cars starting October 1.

Carzonrent, a vehicle rental firm, is also planning to launch the service in Delhi and Bengaluru from the next month.

Mahindra e2o will be on offer. "Although anyone above 18 with a valid licence, proof of residence and other valid documents can hire the car, we are targeting homemakers in Mumbai who can rent the car for self-drive when their husbands take private car to work ," a spokesperson for Carzonrent said.

"While air pollution and fuel prices are rising, the initiative will encourage eco-friendly travel in metropolitan cities." Rajiv Vij, Said Carzonrent managing director.

Initially, the firm plans to commence its service with five vehicles and will expand its fleet based on the demand.

"The tip up with Mahindra Reva also enhances the electric vehicle charging infrastructure in India with over 100 re-charge points at prime locations in Mumbai, Delhi and Bengaluru,'' he said.

"Though the self-drive market is small, the demand has been growing exponentially over the last couple of years with better roads, rising cost of employing chauffeurs and availability of navigation facility. This is a trend in India and will soon catch up.

We expect good response in Mumbai where fuel costs and car rents are very high," he added.

Revving Up

* An electric car can be hired for Rs 200 per hour; entire day for a lump sum of Rs 800

* Cheaper than diesel vehicles (rent Rs 1,400)

* A car will be charged for an eight-hour drive

* Free recharging facility to be provided at various locations

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Proton Power announces world’s first battery and fuel cell operated electric commercial vehicle in the 7.5 to 12 tonne weight class

Source:FuelcellsWorrk

The world’s first electrically operated commercial vehicle in the 7.5 to 12 tonne class with a battery and HyRange fuel cell system from Proton Power

Proton Power is pleased to announce the introduction, by its subsidiary Motor Fuel Cell GmbH (”Proton Motor”) based in Puchheim near Munich, of the world’s first battery and fuel cell operated electric commercial vehicle in the 7.5 to 12 tonne weight class. The vehicle is based on the battery-powered Newton vehicle built by Smith Electric Vehicles.

Proton Motor has integrated a HyRange hydrogen fuel cell system with an output of 8kW into the vehicle which supplies the battery with electrical energy. This significantly improves the vehicle’s range and enables power to be supplied to the driver cabin air conditioning unit or additional equipment such as electrically powered refrigeration units.

The vehicle is available immediately for field testing by interested customers in the box van and tail lift configuration. The project was supported by funding from the NIP (National Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technology Innovation programme).

Dr. Francoise Faiz Nahab, Managing Director of Proton Motor Fuel Cell GmbH, said:

“We developed our HyRange system for buses and commercial vehicles for inner-city use. The vehicles are extremely quiet and emissions free. This is an optimal solution for every city that needs to meet the planned environmental targets. We are very proud of the results of our work over the last 3 years and hope that we will see considerable interest. Field testing the vehicles should give users from the logistics and service sectors an impression of the performance and reliability of our technology.”

The Proton HyRange system is available for commercial vehicles up to 12 tonnes and for buses for local public transport. The modular design of the fuel cell system enables the electric output to be scaled accordingly.

The vehicle will be presented at the World of Energy Solutions trade fair next week in Stuttgart and will be available for test drives there.

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Solar Paint—The Next Big Thing

Source : Oilprice

The answer to harnessing cost-effective solar power may be just around the corner.

A team of researchers from the University of Alberta developed a cost-effective solar cell made with spray-paint like synthetics, and are now touting it as the breakthrough that will prove solar power isn’t as expensive to harness as we thought.

Jillian Buriak, a chemistry professor at the University of Alberta used zinc and phosphide nanoparticles in their research, saying this is some of the most promising materialin the solar cell industry, and far more common than materials currently used in solar panels, such as cadmium.

Buriak and his team found these particles dissolved to form an ink. When sprayed and dried, the thin film was responsive to light.

Essentially, they have designed nanoparticles that absorb light and conduct electricity from two very common elements: phosphorus and zinc. Both materials are more plentiful than scarce materials such as cadmium and are free from manufacturing restrictions imposed on lead-based nanoparticles.

The discovery could be important step in making solar power more accessible and affordable to parts of the world that are off the traditional electricity grid or face high power costs.

"Half the world already lives off the grid, and with demand for electrical power expected to double by the year 2050, it is important that renewable energy sources like solar power are made more affordable by lowering the costs of manufacturing," Buriak said.

Organic solar cells need to reach a conversion efficiency of about 10% to be competitive in the mainstream market. The goal is to make the “solar paint” almost as cheap as regular paint.

If solar paint reaches the market, it will be much easier to apply than current solar panels.

Researchers have applied for a provisional patent and secured funding to enable the next step to scale up manufacture.

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Voltaic Switch solar bag powers your tiny tablets with sunlight

Source: engadget

Voltaic's solar bags sure can be useful, but not everyone likes lugging a laptop or a10-inch tablet around while on a holiday. It's a good thing the company has developed the new Switch solar bag specifically for smaller slates like the iPad mini, so you don't pull a muscle carrying a 6-pound gadget as you navigate the jungle. The firm claims Switch's 6-watt solar panel can charge a typical smartphone in about four hours while under direct sunlight. If you're not keen on leaving a device under the sun, you can always leave the bag outside to charge its built-in 4,000mAh battery, and when sunlight's scarce, the Switch can also take a charge via USB. Unfortunately, the battery only juices up an iPad mini until it's about two-thirds full, unless you purchase Voltaic's optional 10,600mAh cell for $39. Outdoorsy types, feel free to head past the break to read more about Voltaic's new Switch bags or check out Voltaic's online store to purchase one for $129.

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What’s a metal air battery and why is Tesla interested in it?

Source : Gigaom

News broke last week that Tesla was granted a patent for an electric vehicle power train that could use a metal air battery to extend the vehicle’s range. But what I didn’t see in much of the blogger coverage was a deeper analysis of this: what exactly is a metal air battery and why would Tesla be interested in it?

I thought I’d give my take on this since GigaOM has written a bunch about startups and big companies working on metal air batteries, including those that are trying to invent new technologies, and those that are more skeptical of the metal air battery. The technology has been under development for awhile, and a lot of companies have very strong opinions on the technology’s potential.

PolyPlus Batteries

What is a metal air battery?

A battery is usually made up of an anode on one side, a cathode on the other, and an electrolyte in between. For a lithium ion battery, lithium ions travel from the anode to the cathode through the electrolyte, creating a chemical reaction that allows electrons to be harvested along the way.

A metal air battery is a battery that could use a metal — like lithium or zinc — for the anode, air as the cathode (which is drawn in from the environment) and usually a liquid electrolyte. Companies and researchers like the idea of an air battery because oxygen is abundant, free, and doesn’t require a heavy casing to keep it inside a battery cell. So the theoretically amazing metal air battery for an EV could be ultra lightweight, and have a long-lasting regenerative cathode.

A battery that is ultra lightweight can have a very high “energy density,” which the amount of energy that can be stored and provided for the car with a given battery size. The more energy dense the battery, the less volume and weight is needed. An electric car wants as energy dense a battery as possible because it wants as long a range as possible. As battery guru Venkat Srinivasan noted on GigaOM a couple years back: the theoretical energy density of a metal air battery is comparable to gasoline. Of course Tesla wants that.

Some of the problems with metal air batteries include a  potentially poor cycle life (they can’t charge and discharge all that much; the safety issues that some have had in the labs; poor energy efficiency; high costs; and some are difficult to make rechargeable. Fluidic Energy has been working hard on the “dendrite problem” with metal air batteries, in which the batteries can grow sharp needles when the metal doesn’t plate uniformly across the battery as it charges and discharges. These needles shut down the charging and can poke holes in the battery.

Tesla’s interest

Tesla — a company that pushes the boundaries of car design and EV infrastructure — clearly would want to experiment with a battery that could be like gasoline for EVs.In the patent, Tesla showed how it would use a metal air battery as a backup range extender for an EV. So Tesla’s standard lithium ion battery packs would provide the power for regular driving, but the car could offer the ability to switch over to a very energy-dense battery that could provide backup power when the standard batteries are low.

Think of it as Tesla’s blue-sky answer to GM’s extended range Volt. The Volt offers an internal combustion engine as backup to the battery pack. Why couldn’t Tesla offer a super high energy dense battery pack as its rarely-used backup battery extender?

Tesla has long been highly focused on researching the best battery chemistry available for its cars — whether that’s from a competitor, from a big Asian battery conglomerate, or from a new startup. In late 2010 I visited Tesla’s labs in Palo Alto (this was before its Fremont factory was created) and even then Tesla was clearly investigating and testing all of the available battery chemistries available in the lab. Tesla isn’t wedded to the small format lithium ion battery chemistry — it just thinks that that is the best available technology right now.

As Tesla’s CTO JB Straubel has said, battery innovation is improving around 5 percent to 8 percent per year. That metric can deliver a doubling in core performance metrics every ten years, which is ultimately really “revolutionary” for an electric car. If there’s a bigger breakthrough — like a viable metal air battery — Tesla will be all over it.

So now what?

As MIT Tech Review has written, Tesla is probably waiting for a breakthrough in a metal air battery and readying a patent when/if that happens. A metal air battery probably won’t appear in the third-generation mainstream car, or even generations of cars after that.

I think it will be really interesting to watch where that metal air battery innovation will come from. Will it come from a startup that Tesla could snap up? Or will it come from an Asian battery conglomerate that would be eager to be a Tesla supplier down the road?

But other companies and researchers are pretty skeptical of metal air batteries as they’ve had many problems, performance and cost problems. GM has said that “From General Motors’ perspective, we are not investing in this technology because it’s not providing a substantial benefit.”

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India to set up world’s largest solar project

Source:National Turk

New Delhi, Sept 21/Nationalturk- India is likely to set up world’s largest solar mega green power project  in country’s Rajasthan province.

“Indian government has finalized the setting up of a ‘Ultra-Mega Green Solar Power Project’ in Rajasthan State,” an Indian official spokesman said.

He said the project will be set close to Sambhar Lake, about 75 kms from Jaipur, the capital of Rajasthan State.

“The project will have a total capacity of 4000 MWs. It will be the largest solar project in the world,” he said.

First phase of project will be completed by end of 2016

The first phase of the project, which will be of 1000 MW capacity, is likely to be commissioned by the end of 2016. Based on the experience gained during implementation of the first phase of project, the remaining capacity would be implemented through a variety of models.

“When the project is fully commissioned, it will generate electricity of 6000 million units per annum. The project will supply electricity to the distribution companies of various States through country’s National Grid,” the spokesman said.

He said the project being the first project of this scale is expected to set the trend of large scale solar power projects across the world.

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1) India to set up world’s largest solar project

2) India to set up world's largest solar project near Sambhar lake in Rajasthan

Stigo Unveils an Ultra Lightweight Electric Scooter That Folds Down to the Size of a Golf Bag

Source : Inhabitat

Electric vehicles are really hitting their stride this year – and we’re not just talking about cars. The world’s first road-charged bus and an electric tricycle also made their debut, and now an all-electric scooter seems like the most logical next step. Enter the Stigo, a new foldable, ultra-lightweight electric scooter that collapses down to a mere 18 by 16 inches – just about the size of a golf bag but taller – and weighs only 37 pounds.

The Stigo more closely resembles an electric Vespa than that razor scooter kids often put around on. While it’s not a speed demon that you’ll need motorcycle license to legally ride around, the Stigo isn’t a push over either. The 250W hub motor equipped electric scooter can still top out at a speed of 15 miles per hour. With a 36V LiFePO4 battery on board, it’s possible to cruise up to 24 miles on a single charge.

Stigo electric scooters are rolling out in Europe with just 200 models that you can pre-order for a price of 2,370 euros ($3,205) directly from its website. Stigo plans to introduce the scooter in San Francisco and Boston by Autumn 2014. Also if you happen to be in Paris, you can check out the scooter in person when it is presented to the public for the very first time today at the “1000 Pionniers” event.

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Molten-air battery's storage capacity among the highest of any battery type

Source: Phys.org

(Phys.org) —Researchers have demonstrated a new class of high-energy battery, called a "molten-air battery," that has one of the highest storage capacities of any battery type to date. Unlike some other high-energy batteries, the molten-air battery has the advantage of being rechargeable. Although the molten electrolyte currently requires high-temperature operation, the battery is so new that the researchers hope that experimenting with different molten compositions and other characteristics will make molten-air batteries strong competitors in electric vehicles and for storing energy for the electric grid.

The researchers, Stuart Licht, Baochen Cui, Jessica Stuart, Baohui Wang, and Jason Lau, at George Washington University, have published a paper on the new molten-air battery in a recent issue of Energy & Environmental Science.

"This is the first time that a rechargeable molten-air battery has been demonstrated," Licht told Phys.org. "There have been rechargeable batteries that use molten electrolytes, but not air. For example, molten-sulfur batteries have been widely studied for electric car and grid applications. However, sulfur is twice as massive as oxygen (per electron stored) and its mass needs to be carried as part of the battery (whereas air is freely available). The molten-air batteries are the first rechargeable batteries to use a molten salt to store energy using 'free' oxygen from the air and multi-electron storage molecules."

This ability to store multiple electrons in a single molecule is one of the biggest advantages of the molten-air battery. By their nature, multiple-electron-per-molecule batteries usually have higher storage capacities compared to single-electron-per-molecule batteries, such as Li-ion batteries. The battery with the highest energy capacity to date, the vanadium boride (VB₂)-air battery, can store 11 electrons per molecule. However, the VB₂-air battery and many other high-capacity batteries have a serious drawback: they are not rechargeable.

Here, the researchers demonstrated that molten-air batteries offer a combination of high storage capacity and reversibility. The molten-air battery uses oxygen from the air as the cathode material, giving it the benefit of not having to carry this weight. It also has the advantage of not using any exotic catalysts or membranes. Different versions of the battery use different electrolytes, but they are all molten, i.e., melted to a liquid by a high temperature, in this case around 700-800 °C.

The researchers experimented with using iron, carbon, and VB₂ as the molten electrolyte, demonstrating very high capacities of 10,000, 19,000, and 27,000 Wh/l, respectively. The capacities are influenced by the number of electrons that each type of molecule can store: 3 electrons for iron, 4 electrons for carbon, and 11 electrons for VB₂. In comparison, the Li-air battery has an energy capacity of 6,200 Wh/l, due to its single-electron-per-molecule transfer and lower density than the other compositions.

The researchers explain that they were able to make the battery reversible by using an unusual electrolytic splitting process to function as battery "charging." For example, when the iron molten-air battery is discharged, the iron mixes with the oxygen to produce iron oxide. To charge the battery, the iron oxide is converted back into iron metal, and O₂ is released into the air. The carbon and VB₂ molten-air batteries recharge in a similar way, although the electrochemical properties of VB₂ are not as well understood as the others.

As Licht explained, the molten electrolyte is a key to making the battery rechargeable.

"In the case of molten-air batteries, the molten electrolyte opens a pathway to recharge a wide variety of high-capacity multi-electron storage materials," he said. "These materials, while highest in capacity, are a challenge to recharge (how do you reinsert 11 electrons back into each molecule of vanadium boride?). The molten electrolyte provides an effective media that is compatible with both recharging these materials and 'free' oxygen from the air for storage. The high activity of molten electrolytes allows this charging to occur."

While the molten-air battery's high capacity and reversibility make it an attractive candidate for future energy storage applications, the researchers are continuing to improve other areas of the battery. For example, they plan to investigate other types of molten electrolytes with lower melting temperatures, increasing the voltage (a major contributor to power density and, for electric vehicles, maximum speed), and improving the energy efficiency.

"High temperature for a battery is unusual," Licht said. "However, it is not an impediment. Lower capacity, high-temperature molten electrolyte sulfur batteries have already been tested without incident in electric vehicles. No weak spot has yet appeared. The discharge current of the molten-air electrode is sufficient to yield high battery voltages, but as described in the study could be even greater when a higher surface area between the cycled air and the molten salt will be achieved."

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Power and hot water in one: Hybrid solar panels approved for Australia

Source :Reneweconomy

A cutting edge hybrid solar panel technology has become the first of its kind in Australia to be deemed eligible for use as both Solar PV and Solar Hot Water applications in one combined product.

The Sydney-based Solimpeks Australia this week received confirmation that it’s PV-T panels – which have adorned the roofs of a number of houses featured in the UK television series ’Grand Designs’ – are fully certified be used in any residential, commercial or industrial application as part of a whole system on the Solar Hot Water Register – meaning any experienced installer can work with the system.

With the appearance of a high-end solar panel, Solimpeks PV-T combines PV and solar thermal technology, delivering electricity and hot water from the same unit – a first in Australia.

The panels – which have been installed in Queensland, NSW and Victoria in their ’PV Pool Heating’ application – can now be installed in their ‘PV Solar Hot Water’ application for use in any house, says Solimpeks.

The PV-T hybrid systems come in 1kW, 1.6kW, and 2.4kW sizes – each being capable of providing the same PV electricity output as a corresponding-sized PV system, as well as hot water for the household.

The current ‘PowerVolt’ model sold in Australia produces a peak 200W of electrical output and 619W of thermal output. It is eligible for Solar PV STCs and will be eligible for Solar Thermal STCs once approved by the Clean Energy Regulator (expected late 2013).

The company says system also takes up less roof space, being the same size as a regular PV system. The company says additional roof space savings can also be gained by having a ‘Tri-Gen’ system, which provides solar PV, solar hot water and solar pool heating, with one PV-T solar array replacing three separate rooftop solar installations. Hydronic heating can also be added to the equation, making it a ’Quad-Gen’ system.

“If we get it right, we think that this will be ideal for most applications,” Solimpeks’ Daniel Barber told RenewEconomy in a recent interview. “If you want PV, why wouldn’t you get solar thermal. And vice versa. There are one million pools in Australia – we could attract 1 to 5 per cent of that market.” Pool owners are the most unrepresented in the solar PV market, he says, because their rooftops are often taken up with solar hot water collectors.

“If we can take a couple of per cent from solar PV market, and up to 10 per cent of new thermal market, that would be a great result for us.”

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