Want to know more about CarnotBatteries technology?

Meet the experts from Climeon, Echogen Power Systems, Enolcon, Highview Power, Kelvin Thermotech, Malta Inc, MAN Energy Solutions, Steinmuller, at University of Birmingham on 27th March.

About Carnot Batteries

Carnot Batteries have the potential to solve the global storage problem of renewable electricity in a more economic and environmentally friendly way than conventional batteries.The basic technological principle of a Carnot Battery is to transform (A) electricity into thermal energy, (B) store the thermal energy and (C) transform the thermal energy back to electricity. As plenty of technological possibilities exist, the proposed concepts are divers, as are the targeted sizes and applications.

Why an Industry workshop on Carnot Batteries?

The objective of the industry workshop is to introduce the Carnot Batteryconcept to potential user groups in the industry, as well as policy makers, and to discuss together the technical requirements and regulatory needs for the implementation of this technology.

Who can attend?

Professionals, executives and policy makers from both public and private sectors who are involved in R&I activities about smart grids, sustainable electricity and energy storage integration in the power system are invited to attend this workshop.

More information can be found here.

SAVE THE DATE for our first ECR event/funding at the University of Birmingham on 24th March 2020! Don’t miss it if you want to play a significant role to the creation of the ECRs forum, as well as, access to flexible funding and travel grants.

The 1st call for flexible funding will be lanched during the ECR event.

Our vision is an environment where Early Career Researchers (ECRs) feel nurtured and positioned to advance their careers. We will create an ECR forum to encourage interdisciplinary collaboration, problem solving, and learning among peers who are engaged in energy storage research and related areas. Access to flexible funding, a mentoring programme, workshops, seminars, and other events, will be part of the ECR forum to facilitate knowledge exchange, identify research gaps, and support career development. Please register here.

The Supergen Energy Storage Network+ has secured £1M in funding from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and has a core partnership of 19 investigators from 12 UK institutions, all focused on the wider advancement, exchange and dissemination of energy storage expertise. The Supergen Network+ will generate outputs and activities to advance energy storage research and deployment by convening stakeholders across the whole energy community.

Orkney is leading the charge on electric vehicles, with one of the highest uptakes in the UK. As BBC Scotland continues its season of special news coverage on the “climate emergency”, we look at changes needed in transport and what could be learned from islanders.

Read full article here.

The solar energy storage market will surpass an annual installation rate of 3GW by 2025.

That’s according to new research published by market research firm Global Market Insights, which notes in 2018, the combined battery and solar energy sector was worth more than $170 million (£140.6m).

It notes the growth of co-located solar and battery infrastructure will largely be driven by rising environmental concerns in conjunction with “strict regulatory mandates to curtail global emissions”.

It suggests “harnessing the synergy” among intermittent renewable power and demand side electrification is the key factor influencing future adoption rates of such technologies.

Read full article here.

The government has doubled funding for the installation of on-street EV charging points.

This morning transport secretary Grant Shapps announced that the on-street residential chargepoint scheme will see its funding pot doubled by an additional £2.5 million, finance which will support more than 1,000 more on-street chargepoints.

The fund was established in 2017 in a bid to support EV adoption by facilitating the install of publicly accessible EV charging infrastructure for drivers without off-street parking, an issue particularly pertinent for users in metropolitan areas.

The fund initially offered £1.5 million of funding for use in 2017/18, followed by an additional £4.5 million for use in 2018/19 and 2019/20, supporting 75% of the capital costs of procuring and installing on-street charge points, with a project cap of £7,500.

The Department for Transport has now taken the decision to double the funding point, and transport secretary Grant Shapps said that it was vital that EV drivers could be confident about the availability of chargepoints near their homes.

Read full article here.

Vattenfall is developing its first wind-solar-battery power plant that will generate and store clean energy, in the Netherlands.

The developer has made the investment decision to build a photovoltaic system and a battery at its Haringvliet onshore wind project site, in the Goeree-Overflakkee region of South Holland.

Vattenfall will bring the whole plant online in the second half of 2020.

The Haringvliet Zuid full-hybrid power plant (pictured) will consist of six Nordex wind turbines with an installed capacity of 22MW, a 30-hectare ground mounted 38MW PV system, which is Vattenfall’s largest solar project to date, and a 12MW energy storage facility.

Read full article here.

The ability of UK researchers to see deep inside batteries while operating in real time will be greatly enhanced through a series of awards announced by the Faraday Institution today. Three UK-based consortia will receive a total of £2 million to develop battery-focused characterisation and analytical techniques to provide UK battery researchers with world-leading tools to accelerate the development of their understanding of battery materials and enable scientific breakthroughs that will ultimately improve the performance of electric vehicles (EVs).

These technical advances will help UK researchers develop next-generation batteries, as the UK works to electrify the automotive sector and decarbonise transport.

“The next generation of batteries will be achieved through a better understanding of the mechanisms and reactions occurring within them, which would allow researchers to design batteries with better materials that give improved performance, such as extending battery life and increasing storage capacity to hold more energy, extending the range of EVs,” commented the Faraday Institution’s Chief Executive Officer, Neil Morris.

Read full article here.

Falling prices and sunk costs mean that the reigning storage technology has a lasting lead.

Clean-energy visionaries have long argued that the world needs a better battery capable of selling skeptical consumers on electric cars and running the grid on renewable power. And yet the battery of the future—at least for the coming decade—will almost certainly be the battery of the past.

The humble lithium-ion battery has built up such a commanding lead in the market that competing technologies may struggle to catch up. That lead will only widen as a wave of planned new lithium-ion factories comes online in the next five years.

The batteries pouring from new factories in China, the U.S., Thailand and elsewhere will further drive down prices, which have already plunged 85 percent since 2010. And the billions spent on factories will create a powerful incentive for the industry to keep tweaking lithium-ion technology, improving it bit by bit, rather than adopting something else.

Read the rest of the article here.

U.S. grid-connected energy storage capacity this year is set for a twofold increase to 712 MW from 376 MW last year. What’s more, between 2019 and 2024, storage capacity will soar to almost 5 GW, of which 90 percent will be battery storage, IHS Markit said in a new report.

This will make the United States the country with the most energy storage capacity connected to the grid, ahead of the current global leader in this area, South Korea.

Full article here.