Energy Storage - Batteries and Grid

Elon Musk, Tesla, SolarCity... a full-bandwidth of alternatives to fossil energy

Solar + Battery = Tesla / Solar City

The automaker-turned-energy-company logged 54 megawatts of solar deployed in Q4, its highest quarterly performance in 2019.

Customers can select from modular Tesla solar systems in sizes small to extra-large and opt to add a Powerwall.

Tesla also offers subscription or "loan" options, with monthly prices in California ranging from $65 a month for a small solar system to $195 for a large system (prices vary by state).

Subscription solar grew “significantly” last quarter, Tesla said.

In 2019 Tesla-Solar City deployed the 3-megawatt-hour Megapack, a commercial version of its popular storage project. All told, the company deployed 1.65 gigawatt-hours of storage in 2019, beating out every prior year of installs combined.

Continuing to ramp battery capacity will be integral to Tesla’s ongoing success, Musk reported to investmant analysts. The battery packs go to both energy storage products and Tesla’s EVs.

“The thing we’re going to be really focused on is increasing battery production capacity; that’s very fundamental,” said Musk. “We’ve got to make sure we’ve got a very steep ramp in battery production and continue to improve the cost per kilowatt-hour of the batteries.”

Energy Innovation: 21st Century Renewables

Transformative Eco-nomics

The $5 Billion Dollar Race to Build a Better Battery

Young companies staked by big backers are challenging fossil fuels with new ways to hold sun and wind power in the $50 billion energy storage market

'Holy Grail' of Battery Storage?

US Government: We've Found the 'Holy Grail' of Grid-Scale Battery Tech

At the ARPA-E conference, Washington DC: On the hunt for technologies to surpass today's lithium-ion batteries used in smartphones, electric vehicles and multiple uses across the economy.

One project is exploring an all-iron flow battery to store renewable energy efficiently for later reuse on the grid.

ARPA-E has also backed a Stanford University project that is working on an all-electron battery, which stores energy by moving electrons rather than ions and employs a different structural design that it says could boost the amount of energy the battery can store and reduce degradation. It's targeting the electrical vehicle market.

MIT has also been granted $6.9m to develop a 'battery for the neighbourhood' that contains liquid-metal electrodes and a molten-salt electrolyte.

"Because metals and salt don't mix, these three liquids of different densities naturally separate into layers, eliminating the need for a solid separator. This efficient design significantly reduces packaging materials, which reduces cost and allows more space for storing energy than conventional batteries offer," MIT notes.

Yet another battery project that has gained $5.4m in funding comes from PolyPlus, which is developing a lithium-air battery, which it says can store nearly seven times as much energy as lithium-ion batteries.

It envisages its battery will allow electric vehicles to travel 500 miles on a single charge that would cost less than $10.

Mission Innovation -- Launched in December 2015 -- http://www.mission-innovation.net

'Mission-Innovation' Energy Coalition: Includes Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg and Virgin Group head Richard Branson

Breakthrough Energy Coalition -- http://www.breakthroughenergycoalition.com/en/index.html

"The Future of Energy Summit -- 2016 / New York City, London, Shanghai"

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New & Notable Energy Storage Products

http://www.aquionenergy.com/products/energy-storage-battery

• http://www.aquionenergy.com/how-buy

"Clean saltwater batteries that outperform and outlast traditional battery chemistries. AHI batteries contains no heavy metals or toxic chemicals and are non-flammable and non-explosive, making them the safest batteries in the world and ideal for use in pristine environments, island locations, homes, and businesses."

"The Aquion Energy S-Line Stacks are the first batteries in the world to be Cradle to Cradle Certified™ Bronze, an esteemed quality mark recognized across industries to provide a continuous improvement pathway toward the development of sustainable products. The batteries are listed on the Cradle to Cradle Certified™ product registry at C2CCertified.org."

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Grid-scale Energy-Battery Technology'

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_storage

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grid_energy_storage

• https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/Grid-Scale-Energy-Storage-4-Ways-to-Grow-in-2014

• https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/Research-5-Companies-Postioned-to-Succeed-in-Grid-Scale-Energy-Storage

The Grid-Scale Energy Market

Implications for Renewable Energy

The future of renewable energy, primarily wind and solar, is intertwined with the development and deployment of energy storage technologies

Princeton-Andlinger

"Global installed energy storage for grid and ancillary applications is to grow from 538 MW in 2014 to 21 GW in 2024, with revenue from energy storage set to increase from $675 million in 2014 to $15.6 billion in 2024. Worldwide revenue accrued from this market to skyrocket to $15.6 Billion"

• http://www.grid-energy-storage.com/

• http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/grid-scale-electricity-storage-technologies-global-markets-300201141.html

NEW YORK, Jan. 7, 2016 / BCC Research describes the the potential growth of the worldwide grid scale battery storage (GSBS) technology industry and the market for associated storage technologies. Includes forecast from 2015 to 2025.

This report can be used to:

Assess market potential for GSBS technologies over a ten-year period from 2015 through 2025.

Receive information about the regional characteristics of the grid-scale battery storage (GSBS) market.

Analyze existing GSBS technologies and promising emerging battery technologies and applications that are under development.

Gain insight into the regulatory aspects of the GSBS market.

Highlights

The global market for grid-scale battery storage (GSBS) technologies reached $637 million in 2014. This market is projected to reach nearly $4.0 billion in 2025 from $716 million in 2015 at a compound annual growth rate of 18.7% for the period 2015-2025.

Lithium-ion battery storage technology will grow from $257 million in 2015 to nearly $1.9 billion in 2025 at a CAGR of 21.9% for the period 2015-2025.

Flow batteries storage technology will grow from $115 million in 2015 to $773 million in 2025 at a CAGR of 21.0% for the period 2015-2025.

Energy Storage / Grid Scale News

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Elon Musk & Tesla News

Powerwall, 2016

https://assets.inhabitat.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2016/02/Tesla-Gigafactory-Nevada-889x669.jpg

Elon Musk, planet citizen on a mission

Tesla, SpaceX, SolarCity ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk

• http://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/Tesla,_electric_cars

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Elon's thinking, a planet citizen's thinking:

From GrnPolicy: Elon Musk spoke of how the iconic whole earth "Blue Marble" photo of Earth had inspired him to dream and to move his technology plans toward a space & earth connection...

Elon speaks of the danger to Earth's atmosphere, our planet's 'thin blue layer': "We’re running the most dangerous experiment in history right now, which is to see how much carbon dioxide the atmosphere can handle before there is an environmental catastrophe.”

"The greater the change to the chemical composition of the physical, chemical makeup of the oceans and atmosphere [due to increased carbon emissions], the greater the long-term effect will be... [W]hy would you run this crazy experiment to see how bad it'll be? We know it's at least some bad, and the overwhelming scientific consensus is that it'll be 'really bad'."

“As far as Earth is concerned, I think the biggest problem that humanity faces is one of sustainable energy. If we don’t solve that problem this century, independent of any environmental concerns, we will face economic collapse… This is obvious.”

On consciousness: *"I came to the conclusion that really we should aspire to increase the scope and scale of human consciousness in order to better understand what questions to ask. Really, the only thing that makes sense is to strive for greater collective enlightenment."

On vision: "Going from PayPal, I thought well, what are some of the other problems that are likely to most affect the future of humanity? Not from the perspective, 'what's the best way to make money,' which is okay, but, it was really 'what do I think is going to most affect the future of humanity.'"

• "We need to figure out how to have the things we love, and not destroy the world."

• "[Physics is] a good framework for thinking. … Boil things down to their fundamental truths and reason up from there."

• "I have tried to learn as much as possible from prior attempts."

• "Good ideas are always crazy until they’re not."

• "The answer was we thought it could be done."

On Solar and Renewable Energy: "By definition we must move towards renewable energy... How can people argue against that? To argue that is to say that eventually we will run out of energy and die or civilization will collapse."

"When you have an unpriced externality, you can’t quite rely on the market to do the right thing. So in order to have electric vehicles come sooner than they otherwise would — electric vehicles were always going to be the long-term transportation mechanism, but to make that day come sooner — you have to bridge that gap with innovation."

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SolarCity -- Elon on Energy & Solar

CleanTechnica Interviews Elon

Solar needs "a massive volume of stationary battery packs"

Tesla isn't just a car company. Musk has announced plans to build a $5 billion Giga factory that will produce 35 gigawatt-hours of lithium-ion batteries per year -- more than the capacity of all the batteries on the planet today combined.

"This will allow us to achieve a major reduction in the cost of our battery packs and accelerate the pace of battery innovation," Musk said in a Tesla investor newsletter. "This will also allow us to address the solar power industry’s need for a massive volume of stationary battery packs."

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"Solar power [with] batteries will be the primary (not exclusive) means of sustainable energy production... solar power will be the single largest source of electricity generation by the mid-point of the century."​

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On perseverance: "If something is important enough, even if the odds are against you, you should still do it."

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At the Paris Climate Summit, Paris, December 2015

"Mission Innovation/Breakthrough Energy Coalition"

• http://mission-innovation.net/

• http://mission-innovation.net/statement/

• http://www.breakthroughenergycoalition.com/en/index.html

Via the Washington Post -- Bill Gates on climate change: 'We need to move faster than the energy sector ever has.'

"Gates: On Energy and Climate Change"

The first goal of the Mission Innovation green initiative is to double the R&D (research and development) budget allocated for the renewable energy sector over the next five years.

The second goal represents a coalition of 28 leading private investors from all over the world (including here both Democrats and Republicans from the U.S.), that are committed to invest unprecedented resources needed to bring the clean technologies to the market.

• https://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2015/11/29/announcing-mission-innovation

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