smart grid

Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry is to subsidise the installation of distributed battery storage and energy-efficient technologies with a $779m incentive scheme.

The programme is aimed to encourage factories and small businesses to be more energy efficient. The incentive should also increase the installation of energy storage systems at PV power plants and grid substations. The deployment of the battery systems should strengthen electricity grids to facilitate growing levels of renewable energy sources.

US energy storage firm Imergy Power Systems (Imergy) has been selected by Foresight Renewable Solutions to provide three of its flow batteries to a smart microgrid project in California, US.

The batteries will be deployed at the US Navy’s mobile utilities support equipment facility in Port Hueneme. The project, which focuses on developing applications and use-case scenarios to optimise power consumption at military bases, industrial parks and other institutions is, sponsored by the California Energy Commission (CEC).

Britain’s smart-grid company Reactive Technologies has launched a cloud-based demand-side management (DSM) service for commercial and industrial electricity customers.

The so-called Tradenergy service is designed to manage energy consumption in a flexible and profitable way, offering recurring “risk-free” revenue streams without long-term contracts with aggregators participating in the Short Term Operating Reserve (STOR).

The DSM service uses software control to shift energy demands of each consumer in order to minimise energy consumption and enable consumers to benefit from other revenue sources.

According to Oxford-based Reactive Technologies, the Tradenergy technology increases the responsiveness and reduces operational impact by remotely optimising how and when individual electrical assets consume power.

“We believe the only cost- effective way of preventing the UK’s lights going off due to shrinking capacity margins is to focus on allowing end customers to be better prepared for the future by enabling flexibility of how and when energy is used," said Marc Borret, CEO and founder of Reactive Technologies. "Not just when the grid operator calls for it during times of grid stress or peak demand,” he added.

The company said that the DSM service replaces the need of backup diesel generators.

A study by Navigant Research forecasts that the demand response load curtailment in Europe will grow from 30.8GW in 2014 to 196.7GW in 2023.

Energetix subsidiary Energetix Pnu Power has received a UK patent for an important method relating to the core technology within its compressed air uninterruptible power supply products.

The patent - titled 'Lubrication of Positive Displacement Expanders' - describes the method by which efficiency of the conversion of compressed air into electrical power can be optimised with minimal lubrication of mechanical components. Pnu Power produces back-up power solutions, using compressed air, for utility switching, telecommunications, data centres and other mission critical industrial operations.

Energetix says the grant of this patent provides additional protection to the company's core product platform and builds on the company's intellectual property portfolio relating to its Pnu Power technology.

The company has a core patent granted in 20 countries which protects its compressed air driven UPS system as well as two further patents providing additional protection. 

China Racing has announced it will be taking part in the Formula E Championship electric vehicle race series in 2014. China Racing is the second of ten teams to be confirmed for the zero-emission race after UK-based Drayson Racing Technologies.

The teams will race on street circuits in ten cities across the world in electric cars. The cars for the inaugural year are being designed by McClaren, Spark Racing Technology and Dallara. All teams have the opportunity to use the customer car for the first year and encouraged to build their own cars for races in the following years. With support from Chinese automotive makers China Racing hopes to build a team car within three years.

(L-R): CEO Team China Racing – Steven Lu, Chairman Team China Racing - Yu Liu, FIA President - Jean Todt, First Secretary of the Chinese Embassy - Mr. Liang JianSheng, CEO Formula E Holdings - Alejandro Agag.

Alejandro Agag, Chief Executive Officer of Formula E Holdings said: “China has enormous potential for the expansion of electric vehicles as a tool to fight pollution in cities. We think the FIA Formula E Championship can be a powerful tool to make electric cars popular with the Chinese public, particularly the younger generations. Having a Chinese team with us in the Championship will be key to succeeding in that challenge.”