US lithium-ion battery manufacturer EnerDel is to regroup its business strategies and sell battery packs for niche markets, starting with transit buses.
The Indiana-based company will initially start selling replacement battery packs to hybrid transit bus company Allison Transmission.
The United States Advanced Battery Consortium (USABC) has selected ultracapacitor maker Maxwell Technologies (Maxwell) to develop an ultracapacitor/li-ion battery for stop-start vehicles.
The USABC, a subsidiary of the United States Council for Automotive Research, will grant Maxwell $2.68m. The contract is part of a 19-month cost-sharing programme in which the California-based ultracapacitor firm will provide 51%. The award is co-funded by the US Department of Energy.
Energy storage giant Saft has been contracted by Isotron SAU to supply two lithium-ion battery storage systems to a solar PV diesel hybrid plant in Bolivia’s Pando region.
Saft’s energy storage system (ESS) is aimed to enable solar storage at the site and integrate power into the diesel-powered grid. The ESS will combine two containerised lithium-ion battery systems, with a nominal storage capacity of 580kWh and 1.1MW peak power output each.
NRG Energy’s subsidiary eVgo and energy storage company Green Charge Networks (GCN) have partnered for electric vehicle (EV) charging stations with integrated energy storage.
The Californian partnership is aimed to combine GCN’s energy storage systems (ESS) with eVgo’s DC fast charging installations. The ESS uses lithium-ion batteries and allows end-users to reduce consumption as well as to avoid high demand charges during peak times, according to GCN.
The Zentrum für Sonnenenergie- und Wasserstoff-Forschung Baden-Württemberg (ZSW) has inaugurated a lithium-ion battery research centre for the development of electric vehicle batteries in Ulm, Germany.
The 3,600 square metres centre comprises of a complete industrial-scale battery manufacturing line supplied by Manz in order to develop automotive cells under real-world industrial conditions.
US-based startup BlueVine Graphene Industries (BlueVine) is to scale up the production of graphene for commercial applications such as the company’s supercapacitors.
The company has developed scalable graphene electrodes, which can be customised to unique customer applications. The scale-up is also aimed to provide pricing advantages.
Younicos, the German fossil-free energy supplier, and Samsung SDI have won a contract to supply a 1MW battery to Italian grid operator Terna.
The lithium-ion battery will be installed on Sardinia as part of Terna’s grid defense plan to analyse the use of storage to strengthen the electricity grid. Following this installation a further 24MW of energy storage will be integrated into the electrical grids on the islands of Sardinia and Sicily.
Younicos’ chief technical officer Clemens Triebel said the company is eager to demonstrate how their intelligent software and experience in frequency control and battery management can integrate industrially available batteries into existing grids to balance fluctuating renewable energy sources.
This could prove to be a model for how other utilities across Europe can use storage to strengthen the grid. “This holds an important lesson also for Germany,” said Triebel. “We urgently need an equally quick and resolute expansion of efficient short-term storage if our energy transition is to be a success.”
Hitachi has announced it has developed an energy storage system for the US market that can be integrated to high-voltage power lines to capture energy that has been generated by renewable sources. The stored energy can be sold back to the grid from the lithium-ion battery at times of high demand.
The Japanese company believes the 1MW system, known as CrystEna, will help to stabilise the grid by supporting solar and wind power.
Tesla may be set to face a costly recall after three fires on its Model S in five weeks called into question the safety of the battery. Despite Elon Musk’s protestations to the contrary, the decision will be down to US regulators who may decide to investigate the fires as a defect.
Musk is adamant a recall will not be required. This could be the case if the regulators view the fires as isolated incidences rather than an inherent problem with the car’s design.
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