NEWS Massachusetts becomes next US state to set energy storage targets for utilities The US state of Massachusetts intends to set energy storage targets for electrical utilities, a move that could fortify a developing industry that state officials said could store 600MW megawatts of power by 2025. The impetus behind the move follows state government officials in California setting aggressive renewable energy targets mandating certain amounts of storage for each utility. Massachusetts’ Department of Energy Resources determined it is “prudent for the Commonwealth to set targets for energy storage systems”, according to DOER commissioner Judith Judson in December. An energy diversification law was signed by Charlie Baker, the state governor, in August. This gave the DOER the discretion to determine whether to set costeffective energy storage targets for utilities to be achieved by January 2020. The law required the department to make a determination on targets by year’s end. The DOER is opening a public comment period ending January 27 and the department will need to adopt storage targets by July 1. In September, Baker administration officials said the state planned to fund up to half the cost of roughly 10 to 15 energy storage projects under an $11 million programme aimed at creating 5MW of storage.
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Carbon nanotubes create ‘spectacular’ improvement in lead batteries Lithium may lead the field in energy storage at the grid level but the lead battery industry is fighting back with improvements that could challenge the supremacy of lithium by offering similar capabilities but at much lower cost. Scientists at the university of Bar-llan in Israel and the nanotube company OCSiAl have announced “spectacular” results when they added single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNT) to the electrode pastes of lead-acid batteries. Presenting at the world’s first nanoaugmented materials industry summit that was held in Novosibirsk, Russia, in November, Doron Auerbach, head of the chemistry department at Bar-llan University, said there had also been remarkable results with the addition of SWCNT to the electrodes of advanced lead batteries with gel electrolyte — an improvement he said had been completely unexpected. “It was above all expectations,” said Auerbach. “SWCNT increased the mechanical strength of the
active mass, the integrity of the active mass and the electric conductivity of the active mass. “Even tiny amounts were very effective, which means with mass production the cost will not be a big issue because the amounts required are so tiny.” Auerbach said that with just 0.001% of SWCNT added to the electrode paste of ordinary lead-acid batteries, the cycles of the cells increased by more than 600 and there was a five-fold increase in cycle life. The rate capability increased more than five times with the addition of the nanotubes. With advanced lead batteries it was even more remarkable because the results were unexpected, he said. “In advanced lead acid batteries the electrolyte is now a gel, and we didn’t expect there to be much of a difference because the batteries are better, after all,” he said. “But when the cells were polarized, they needed much lower voltage if they
had SWCNT added to the gel. “When we added our magic additive we could see the improvement in advanced lead batteries which was spectacular when compared with blank cells. There was a five-fold gain in cycle number.” The addition of SWCNT also suppressed sulfation, Auerbach said. The nanoaugmented materials summit was organized by OCSiAl, the Luxembourg-based firm that has developed its own brand of nanotubes, Tuball. Tuball consists of more than 75% of single wall carbon nanotubes and is added to a wide range of materials which the firm says include touch screen panels, polymers, structural composites, rubber goods and batteries. OCSiAl co-founder Yuri Koropachinoskiy said: “Commercial production of SWCNT is a fundamental achievement. This is the first material with fundamentally new properties which mankind has learned to produce commercially over the past 50 years.”
AES 50MW facility in Scotland advances One of the world’s largest power storage facilities — a 50MW array in Fife, Scotland to be built and operated by AES — is advancing and a planning application is likely to be submitted to the local council early this year. The proposed battery energy storage array would be housed in an agricultural style building, and would be operational in 2018. The site would collect
surplus electricity from the grid and feed it back into the network at times of high demand. The arrays relieve pressure on generation plants and help ensure a balanced system of electricity generation and supply. AES will deliver the project using Advancion 4, the company’s fourth generation battery-based energy storage platform, which won the Edison Electric Institute’s 2016 International
Edison Award. The company says Advancion 4 will improve existing electric infrastructure and unlock the value of existing clean energy resources. AES’s first, battery-based energy storage facility in the UK was the Kilroot array in Northern Ireland. It provides 10 MW of interconnected energy storage, equivalent to 20 MW of flexible resource for the allisland transmission grid.
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