Energy storage news: 11.12.13

The top energy storage news stories from our Twitter feed over the last week.

• Toshiba is entering the solar power energy market in Germany – offering customers electricity at below utility prices and using systems that include energy storage.

• SolarCity is entering the commercial energy storage industry, using batteries from Tesla Motors and smart software.

• The UK Department of Energy and Climate Change has awarded a GBP£3m contract to EValu8 Transport Innovations, on behalf of the Electric Vehicle Embedded Renewable Energy Storage and Transmission (EVEREST) Consortium. EVEREST is developing modular energy storage systems based on recycled electric vehicle batteries.

• Japanese utilities and government are investing in battery energy storage projects as solar power booms in Japan.

• China is to build a concentrated solar power (CSP) plant with a thermal energy storage system in the province of Qinghai. The Chinese government has announced a target of 1GW of CSP capacity by 2015 and 3GW by 2020.

• Leonardo DiCaprio and Venturi Automobiles have launched a FIA Formula E team, to race in the 2014 electric vehicle series.

• A report from Ricardo for the UK’s Low Carbon Vehicle Partnership suggests that, while hybrid buses offer reduced carbon dioxide emissions, improvement in terms of other pollutants may not be as great.

• Scientists from the University of California, Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have discovered that dendrites, which cause lithium-ion batteries to fail, form in the electrode, not the electrolyte.

• Honda has joined the world’s first revenue-generating vehicle-to-grid technology project, led by the University of Delaware and NRG Energy.

• All future Toyota hybrid electric and battery electric vehicles will be capable of wireless charging, using technology from WiTricity.

• Hydrogen fuel cell and hydrogen fuel systems stocks have more than doubled in 2013, with steep rises seen for Plug Power, Ballard Power Systems, Hydrogenics Corporation and Quantum Fuel Systems Technologies Worldwide.

• Researchers at the University of Bolton, UK and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, USA, are working together to develop nano-composite materials for more efficient hydrogen storage.

• Selenium sulfide composite cathodes could increase the energy density of a rechargeable lithium-ion battery five times, according to the Argonne National Laboratory.

• The 2014 Mitsubishi i MiEV electric car has received a huge price cut in the US.

• Stem, the battery energy storage company based in California, has gained more Series B funding, this time from Angeleno Group, a clean-tech investor.

• Daimler and BYD have joined forces on an electric car project for China, the Denza, which should be launched in Beijing next year.

• The ITM Power hydrogen electrolyser plant in Frankfurt, Germany has started injecting hydrogen into the German gas distribution network.

• New lithium-sulphur-graphene-oxide batteries could hold enough power for electric vehicles to break the 300-mile mark in a single charge.

• Researchers are investigating whether methanol fuel cells are practical as range extenders for electric vehicles.

• The European Union Hydrogen Fuel Cell Joint Undertaking has announced that EUR€23m funding is available for up to 24 fuel-cell buses in Europe.

• The Ontario government has acknowledged that energy storage is vital to the future of the grid in its updated Long Term Energy Plan and is bringing in policy measures to accelerate the growth of the energy storage industry in Canada.

• SolarReserve, based in the US, has opened an office in Australia to target the mining industry with its concentrated solar power and energy storage technology.

• An inquiry by the German Federal Motor Transport Authority, Kraftfahrt-Bundesamt, has found no manufacturer-related defects were involved in recent Tesla Motors Model S fires.

• A two-year trial in Australia suggests electric vehicles can work in the market if the Australian government provides incentives.

• The Los Angeles Times thinks the grid in California is not ready for renewable energy and storage.

• Trials in Barcelona, Spain, suggest hydrogen fuel-cell buses are 12 times more expensive than conventional ones, while BYD electric buses should have a similar lifetime cost as diesel ones.

• Alt Energy Stocks considers ZBB Energy, which has staked its future on zinc bromide batteries.

• Pumped hydro plants in Norway could act as a giant battery, if linked to the same grid as Northern Europe’s large offshore wind farms, says the Scandinavian research group Stiftelsen for Industriell og Teknisk Forskning. We couldn’t agree more.