batteries and energy storage technology

KiWi Power is to provide full-service demand response programmes to UK government agencies through Government Procurement Service (GPS).

Under the terms of the agreement, KiWi Power will provide demand response services to participating central government and public sector facilities, including NHS trusts and hospitals, Ministry of Defence, Department for Transport, universities and local councils across the UK for the next four years.

The various government organisations that use this framework agreement will have, or seek to have, the ability to curtail/shift consumption of electricity or utilise on-site electricity generation capabilities. In so doing they will be able to provide a demand side resource to the local or national grid.

KiWi Power will conduce initial analysis and turndown assessment, smart meter installation, programme management, on-going performance testing and energy optimisation. KiWi Power will manage the full process on behalf of participating sites, including enrollment, reporting and settlement. Sites will receive payment for participation, and will not incur any out-of-pocket expenses.

“As energy costs climb for everyone, not only will demand response programmes help curtail electricity usage, these programmes do it in a way that does not interfere with the critical infrastructure of our nation's government sites and help maintain budgets for doing the real work of supporting the UK,” said Scott Buckleton, head of business development at GPS.

Scientists as Oak Ridge National Laboratory have developed a solid electrolyte for lithium-ion batteries that will provide greater energy density. The substance is made by manipulating lithium-thiophosphate so that it could conduct ions 1000 times faster than in its natural bulk form. The researchers used nanostructuring to alter the structure of the crystals that make up the material.

By altering it in this way, the solid electrolyte was not flammable as a liquid electrolyte would be. Chengdu Liang, who led the study, said: "Cycling highly reactive lithium metal in flammable organic electrolytes causes serious safety concerns," Liang said. "A solid electrolyte enables the lithium metal to cycle well, with highly enhanced safety."

The team developed the solid electrolyte by refining lithium-thiophosphate until it could conduct ions at a faster rate than in its natural state.

"We started with a conventional material that is highly stable in a battery system - in particular one that is compatible with a lithium metal anode," said Liang.

One of the research paper’s coauthors, Adam Rondinone, said the method can be scaled up to create large amounts of the material based on the same nanostructuring.

Spanish genset OEM Himoinsa has unveiled the HVW480, a genset specially designed for integration into mobile cranes.

Last June, Himoinsa reached an agreement with Paceco Espana, a company that designs and manufactures cranes and container shipment & handling systems, to supply power to five RTT Transtainer cranes in the Port of Tenerife.

After several months of work, the Power Solution engineering team of Himoinsa designed the HVW480 generating set. Features of the EU stage IIIA-compliant HVW480 genset include: a fastening system to prevent detachment caused by crane movement; correctly dimensioned for loads with high harmonic distortion and load variations during aggressive work cycles; and paint and hardware treatment, suitable for working in saline environments at seaports.

The crane incorporates a fuel-saving system, so that during waiting time until vehicles arrive to load or unload goods, the system automatically reduces the revolutions of the diesel group to minimum tick over speed, resulting in fuel saving. 

Emerson Network Power has announced a feature to make industrial UPSs twice as secure. Data from the UPS is fed into the AMS Suite Intelligent Device Manager to provide continuous monitoring of critical systems. This will benefit oil and gas terminals, power generators and offshore facilities and other plants where predictive maintenance is required.

The UPS can generate and broadcast self-diagnostic data, which the Intelligent Device Manager can pick up and feed back to the plant manager to inform them of any deterioration of parts to the UPS, or in the event of failure, to ensure downtime is prevented.

David Vasselin, Vice President of business development at Emerson Network Power said: "This is cost-effective insurance against an unexpected power outage where losses can run into the millions of dollars per day."

The system seamlessly provides information on UPS performance, and issues alerts should the performance of any part fall below what is expected, this tells the plant manager where maintenance is needed and how urgently.

German genset OEM Tognum is to showcase diesel gensets carrying the MTU Onsite Energy brand at the Bauma construction machinery exhibition in Munich from 15-21 April 2013.

The gensets will be displayed in the open-air area (45A, booth 106) and include a hooded genset based on a 12V 1600 engine with 660 kVA power output, suitable for open-air use on building sites.

The genset hood is both sound and weather-proof and protects the genset from weather influences and contamination while reducing noise emissions.

Also on display is an MTU Onsite Energy genset based on a 16V 4000 engine with 2,595 kVA power output.