Tag: batteries

We can’t control the weather (yet). But we can control how we store weather-dependent renewable energy. By making use of salt caves, former mining sites, and depleted gas wells, compressed air energy storage can be an effective understudy when wind or solar aren’t available. It has the potential to offer longer-duration storage that other technologies can’t for a lower capital investment. Can compressed air change the energy storage game? Or is it just a little too niche?

If there’s any doubt that solid state batteries are actually here, well … here’s your proof. You can actually buy this for yourself and get it delivered to your door in a day or two. No, solid state batteries aren’t everywhere and definitely not mass market yet, but they also aren’t vaporware and always five years away. Just like this Yoshino battery, there’s other solid state batteries right on the cusp of ending up in consumer electronics devices near you. But do these early versions live up to the hype? And who is this Yoshino battery really good for?

There is a way to harvest energy 24/7 from our oceans, through a technology called ocean thermal energy conversion. It would help provide reliable renewable energy, especially for vulnerable islands in tropical regions. The basic technology has been around for hundreds of years already. So, why hasn’t it caught on?

What do you do if a satellite runs out of batteries? It’s prohibitively expensive to send a team into orbit and pop in some new AAs, and as a result many satellites use very efficient, reliable and long-lived nickel-hydrogen batteries. We’re talking about batteries that last decades. That sounds like the sort of battery that could revolutionize grid-scale energy storage and really help out renewables back here on Earth, which is why EnerVenue is backing nickel hydrogen batteries as the next step forward! But if batteries rugged and powerful enough for spacecraft already exist, then why haven’t we used it back here on Earth until now?

It’s been nice to see the growing popularity of electric vehicles these last few years, but EVs need batteries and batteries don’t last forever. In fact, the first generation of EV batteries are already dying, and there’s an absolute dead battery typhoon coming. Lithium battery recycling is improving, but it’s still far from where it needs to be. Luckily there’s another option that’s pretty simple. Just take those used batteries and repurpose them for less demanding large scale energy storage. That’s exactly what’s happening at a recently opened 25 MWh grid scale energy storage system in California. But if these batteries are “dead,” how are they able to bring new life to renewable energy storage?