critical power

Canada’s National Research Council (NRC) is beginning a research programme that aims to make grid-scale energy storage cheaper to speed up the integration of storage with renewable energy in Canada.

The Energy Storage for Grid Security and Modernisation Programme hopes to find a way to slash the cost of grid-scale storage from C$1,000 (US$963) to C$500(US$481)/kWh and double the operating lifetime of storage systems from seven to 15 years.

The NRC said energy costs for Canadian consumers will rise over the next 20 years as the country’s grid undergoes maintenance and upgrades. Implementing grid-scale energy storage as part of the upgrades would reduce costs for customers in the long term.

EnerSys has introduced a battery rotation system called the Hawker BSI40 battery status indicator for motive power fleet users. It provides users with a cost-effective solution to manage battery fleets for warehouse trucks and other mechanical handling equipment.

The BSI40 can accommodate up to 40 chargers as a rack or wall mounted panel. Fleet users can network four panels to support up to 160 chargers by one system. The batteries can be configured in up to ten separate groups to allow management of chargers and batteries with different specifications to provide flexibility, adaptability and scalability for operators.

Battery rotation and charge balancing helps to ensure longer truck run-times between changes and maximises performance and service life.

The system is suitable for new and retrofit installations, which enables operators to introduce higher levels of control over existing battery and charger infrastructure with minimal investment. The system can be integrated with existing chargers by addition of optional sensors.

An LCD panel on the front of the unit and a scrolling message display board indicate to the operator the best available battery to use at the next change or to warn if the wrong battery has been selected.

Battery status data can be analysed with the system’s reporting software on any PC with reports generated showing battery performance and status. 

Cummins Power Generation has entered an agreement with Heliocentris, a specialist in energy efficiency and clean power solutions based in Berlin, to create a hybrid power system for telecom sites. The system can incorporate renewably produced energy to reduce fuel consumption, carbon footprint and the total cost of operation of bringing power to cellular base stations by up to 70%.

As part of the five-year agreement with Heliocentris, Cummins will incorporate Heliocentris’ networked energy management technology into a new hybrid power system for the telecom base stations.

The hybrid system features a diesel generator set, storage batteries and networked energy management technology to supply power to cellular sites. Cummins said that combining generator sets designed for telecommunication cellular sites with a hybrid system, which cycles batteries and integrates renewably produced energy from PV, ensures a continuing reduction of fuel consumption and operating and maintenance costs.

“After extensive testing of various systems, we identified the energy management package from Heliocentris as one of the most flexible and reliable systems on the market,” said Antonio Leitao, Vice President of Power Products at Cummins Power Generation. “Our leading diesel generator offerings and global service network, combined with Heliocentris’ networked energy management system, will provide our customers with highly reliable power systems that help meet sustainability goals while reducing their total cost of ownership. In addition, our network-enabled hybrid power system will significantly improve the availability of power for cell sites with the advanced operation and maintenance package.”

Combining renewable power generation with a diesel generator set and battery storage offers energy efficiency with reliability at the lowest cost of ownership. It will integrate seamlessly into a cellular provider’s network operations and also allow the integration of renewable energy technology such as solar, wind or fuel cells.

eBay has extended its data centre in Utah and powered the new build entirely by Bloom Energy fuel cells.

The extension to the online auctioneer’s data centre in South Jordan, Salt Lake City, will not have a traditional UPS, instead using the electric grid as backup.

Instead of using fuel cells as a back up power supply, it will use 30 Bloom cells for primary power and the grid for emergency power. The fuel cells will generate 1.75 million kWh of electricity each year with a total capacity of 6MW.

“Generators and UPSs are used for less than 1% of the year,” said Dean Nelson, Vice President for foundation services at eBay. “We have a huge investment of tens of millions of dollars in that. Is it really the best way to do it?”

Bloom Energy said the fuel cell powered data centre seeds the potential for a data centre to become independent of the electric grid.

The fuel cells use solid oxide to convert natural gas to energy without combustion. They make use of evaporative cooling  and outside-air cooling to reduce the need for air-conditioning to the servers.

The data centre uses special container modules from Dell and HP. Dell’s “EPIC” containers are the very dense, fitting up to 1MW of power into 24 racks. HP’s new EcoPod modules designed for eBay are double-width and connect up to 1.4MW to 44 racks of servers.

eBay has chosen fuel cells as a ‘green’ approach because they use renewable energy and eliminates wasteful transmission of the power. Nelson said: “We are generating mega-watts of power on site and consuming it 100 feet away. That’s extremely efficient.” 

Schneider Electric has appointed Dicker Data as the Australian distributor for its UPS systems for the home and small to medium businesses (SMB).

Dicker Data was chosen as the distributing partner because it complements Schneider Electric’s existing IT distributor network, as well as providing access into new markets.

Paul Tyrer, Schneider Electric’s IT business Pacific Vice President, said he hopes the partnership will provide incremental growth and allow the company to expand its channel presence in the SMB space.