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Interesting energy storage solutions?

Rechargeable batteries

Photo credit Tom Raftery

I published this post on the IBM Global Eco Jam last week and it generated some interesting feedback so I thought I’d re-publish it here too to solicit your thoughts –

I was at the NewNet CleanTech Investors Summit in London last November.

At this event a poll was taken asking which CleanTech issues were perceived as being most important/having the most potential by the investment community – the answers were Energy Efficiency and Energy Storage.

I have seen several posts here on efficiency but none on energy storage so I said I’d start one.

What are the most interesting energy storage solutions people are seeing emerging.

I’ll kick off –

The two most interesting I have seen are
1. Thermal storage using heavily insulated bricks (!) for domestic energy storage (resistive heating) and
2. Metal air batteries – zinc air batteries are scheduled to come to market later this year. Zinc is abundant, cheap, non-toxic, non-explosive and readily recyclable. Zinc air batteries have an energy density about two to three times that of lithium ion batteries.

With that energy density and price point, it should be possible to build utility scale storage (allowing renewables to store excess energy when the wind is blowing strongly, and sell it when the wind drops or demand increases, for example).

Are there any other options people are seeing (and let’s leave pumped hydro out of this discussion – it is old tech, expensive and has significant environmental impacts).

One of the respondents pointed me to news out of Stanford in December that Stanford scientists are harnessing nanotechnology to quickly produce ultra-lightweight, bendable batteries and supercapacitors in from everyday paper!

What other interesting forms of energy storage have you come across?

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HP teaming with Xtreme Energetics to produce cheaper, more efficient cheaper solar

Photovoltaic array
Photo Credit Pink Dispatcher

James and I had lunch the other day with Simon Wardley.

During the course of what turned out to be a wide-ranging discussion Simon brought up the topic of flexible solar panels. I was delighted to read today then that Xtreme Energetics and HP are teaming up to produce

a solar energy system designed to generate electricity at twice the efficiency and half the cost of traditional solar panels

According to the piece, XP will use thin-film, transparent transistors developed by HP which are made from readily available materials such as Zinc and Tin – which have the added advantage of not having environmental issues.

Within 24 months, the company will release roof panels integrated with HP’s technology to deliver dramatic energy gains at a comparable price point to conventional PV systems, Colin Williams, CEO of Xtreme Energetics said. “Our panels will be twice as efficient, we’ll be able to deliver a higher energy density, and customers will have the option of choosing a color.”

The fact that the electronics are transparent means that more light gets through and thus the efficiency is further improved.

If these are truly transparent, south-facing windows on buildings could have these applied without significant impact on light entering the building. Ten at times when most energy is needed (sunny days when the aircon is turned up to 11), these transparent PV walls are cranking out the power to cool the building.

It is cheaper peak shaving – I like it.

Via