Hacker News with Generative AI: Energy Storage

Zinc Microcapacitors Are the Best of Both Worlds (ieee.org)
Researchers have developed zinc-ion micro-capacitors that could combine the best features of batteries and supercapacitors for small applications.

Energy Storage, Batteries, Microelectronics, Materials Science

74 points by Brajeshwar 10 days ago | 8 comments

Concrete spheres for energy storage; California plans a 9-meter diameter sphere (farmingdale-observer.com)
Storing renewable energy sustainably and efficiently is one of the major challenges of our time. A team of German researchers is proposing a revolutionary solution: concrete spheres immersed in the ocean floor. Their potential is such that California is preparing to test a large-scale prototype.

Energy Storage, Renewable Energy, Engineering, Climate Change, California

30 points by joe_the_user 13 days ago | 39 comments

Will supercapacitors come to AI's rescue? (ieee.org)
To combat power demands from AI that can oscillate on second timescales, data centers are adding banks of supercapacitors.

Artificial Intelligence, Energy Storage, Supercapacitors

51 points by mfiguiere 17 days ago | 66 comments

Lithium-sulfur battery retains 80% charge capacity after 25,000 cycles (techxplore.com)
An international team of engineers and materials scientists has developed a lithium-sulfur battery capable of retaining 80% of its charge capacity after 25,000 cycles.

Batteries, Energy Storage, Materials Science, Engineering

120 points by T-A 91 days ago | 82 comments

More Solar and Battery Storage Added to TX Grid Than Other Power Src Last Year (insideclimatenews.org)
As the market for renewables in Texas continues to strengthen and innovate, the power makeup of the state’s electric grid is slated to keep shifting toward adding more renewables. Last year, solar and battery storage installation led capacity growth within Texas’ electric grid, according to research from the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas published in January.

Renewable Energy, Texas, Energy Storage

111 points by indigodaddy 97 days ago | 119 comments

Aluminum batteries outlive lithium-ion with a pinch of salt (ieee.org)
Electric vehicles( EVs) and green energy sources rely heavily on batteries to store electricity. Currently, more than 75 percent of the world’s energy storage depends on batteries that contain lithium, an expensive mineral that’s subject to volatile pricing. Lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries themselves can be volatile, too, because they use a flammable electrolyte that can catch fire when overcharged.

Batteries, Energy Storage, Electric Vehicles, Materials Science

234 points by rbanffy 106 days ago | 129 comments

Tesla Megapacks chosen for 548 MWh energy storage project in Japan (teslarati.com)
Tesla’s Megapack grid-scale batteries have been selected to back an energy storage project in Japan, coming as the latest of the company’s continued deployment of the hardware.

Tesla, Energy Storage, Japan, Batteries, Renewable Energy

5 points by bilsbie 109 days ago | 0 comments

California went a record 98 days with 10 hours of electricity from renewables (grist.org)
A new study in the journal Renewable Energy that looked at California’s deployment of renewable power highlights just how reliable the future of energy might be. It found that last year, from late winter to early summer, renewables fulfilled 100 percent of the state’s electricity demand for up to 10 hours on 98 of 116 days, a record for California.

Renewable Energy, California, Climate Change, Energy Storage, Research

29 points by vegetablepotpie 117 days ago | 31 comments

Plastic supercapacitors could solve energy storage problems (newsroom.ucla.edu)
UCLA chemists have created a new type of textured, fur-like PEDOT film with more surface area to store charge and built a supercapacitor with it that stored nearly ten times more charge than conventional PEDOT and lasted nearly 100,000 charging cycles.

Energy Storage, Nanotechnology, Materials Science, Chemistry

5 points by gnabgib 122 days ago | 2 comments

Largest compressed air energy storage facility starts operation in China (ess-news.com)
A 300 MW compressed air energy storage (CAES) power station utilizing two underground salt caverns in central China’s Hubei Province was successfully connected to the grid at full capacity, making it the largest operating project of the kind in the world.

Energy Storage, Renewable Energy, China, Engineering

6 points by gnabgib 133 days ago | 0 comments

Solar desalination and electrolysis system with energy recovery and storage (sciencedirect.com)
Agricultural activities in remote desert locations face significant challenges due to high water and energy demands and the lack of necessary infrastructure.

Solar Energy, Desalination, Water Management, Energy Storage

8 points by PaulHoule 156 days ago | 0 comments

Lithium-Ion Battery Pack Prices See Largest Drop Since 2017, Falling to $115kWHr (bnef.com)
New York, December 10, 2024 – Battery prices saw their biggest annual drop since 2017. Lithium-ion battery pack prices dropped 20% from 2023 to a record low of $115 per kilowatt-hour, according to analysis by research provider BloombergNEF (BNEF). Factors driving the decline include cell manufacturing overcapacity, economies of scale, low metal and component prices, adoption of lower-cost lithium-iron-phosphate (LFP) batteries, and a slowdown in electric vehicle sales growth.

Battery Technology, Energy Storage, Electric Vehicles, Economics

11 points by gnabgib 163 days ago | 0 comments

Lower-cost sodium-ion batteries are finally having their moment (arstechnica.com)
Sodium-ion batteries for electric vehicles and energy storage are moving toward the mainstream. Wider use of these batteries could lead to lower costs, less fire risk, and less need for lithium, cobalt, and nickel.

Energy Storage, Batteries, Electric Vehicles, Materials Science

14 points by givinguflac 167 days ago | 25 comments

TagEnergy to build France's largest battery, 240MW/480MWh (ess-news.com)
Lisbon-headquartered renewable energy company TagEnergy has launched construction of France’s biggest battery energy storage system (BESS). Tesla will contribute to the project also, offering market access services and its expertise in advanced storage solutions.

Renewable Energy, Energy Storage, France, Batteries

12 points by gnabgib 169 days ago | 17 comments

Gyrobus: A Bus Powered by a Flywheel (wikipedia.org)
A gyrobus is an electric bus that uses flywheel energy storage, not overhead wires like a trolleybus.

Transportation, Electric Vehicles, Energy Storage

3 points by busfahrer 169 days ago | 0 comments

How We Got the Lithium-Ion Battery (construction-physics.com)
The lithium-ion battery is, obviously, an extremely important technology. It helped make portable electronics possible, from laptops to smartphones to drones. It’s literally powering the transition to electric vehicles, and it’s increasingly finding a role in grid-scale energy storage, enabling more construction of intermittent renewables and helping with electric power decarbonization.

Lithium-ion Batteries, Technology, Energy Storage, Electric Vehicles

83 points by JumpCrisscross 175 days ago | 26 comments

BYD launches sodium-ion grid-scale BESS product (energy-storage.news)
Chinese EV giant BYD has launched what an executive claimed is the ‘world’s first high-performance’ sodium-ion BESS product, using its proprietary form factor Long Blade Battery cell.

Battery Technology, Energy Storage, China, Electric Vehicles

139 points by toomuchtodo 176 days ago | 150 comments

Solid-state batteries enter pilot production, costs expected to drastically drop (pv-magazine.com)
The push to commercialize solid-state batteries (SSBs) is underway with industries from automotive to storage betting on the technology. But while the hype around full solid-state batteries has somewhat subsided, with the technology taking longer than expected to take off, semi-solid-state batteries, which use a hybrid design of solid and liquid electrolyte, have been making steady progress toward commercialization.

Solid-State Batteries, Battery Technology, Energy Storage, Automotive

30 points by rustoo 202 days ago | 4 comments

US power grid added battery equivalent of 20 nuclear reactors in past four years (theguardian.com)
Faced with worsening climate-driven disasters and an electricity grid increasingly supplied by intermittent renewables, the US is rapidly installing huge batteries that are already starting to help prevent power blackouts.

Renewable Energy, Climate Change, Energy Storage, Power Grids, United States

18 points by toomuchtodo 208 days ago | 12 comments

Energy Storage is a solved problem (pv-magazine.com)
There are thousands of extraordinarily good pumped hydro energy storage sites around the world with extraordinarily low capital cost. When coupled with batteries, the resulting hybrid system has large energy storage, low cost for both energy and power, and rapid response. Storage is a solved problem.

Energy Storage, Renewable Energy, Pumped Hydro, Batteries

13 points by simonebrunozzi 213 days ago | 2 comments

$1B Solar and Battery Storage Project Breaks Ground in Utah (electrek.co)
Renewables developer rPlus Energies has broken ground on one of the largest solar + battery storage projects in the US, in east-central Utah.

Renewables, Energy Storage, Utah, Solar Energy

66 points by m463 241 days ago | 34 comments

Grid-scale batteries: They're not just lithium (arstechnica.com)
As power utilities and industrial companies seek to use more renewable energy, the market for grid-scale batteries is expanding rapidly.

Renewable Energy, Energy Storage, Batteries

9 points by dangle1 245 days ago | 2 comments

Sunamp's thermal battery uses a chemical found in salt-and-vinegar potato chips (techcrunch.com)
Nearly 20 years ago, Andrew Bissell was sitting in the living room of his beachfront home in the Edinburgh area. He and his wife, Susan Lang-Bissell, had just sold their medical imaging startup, and he was pondering his future.

Energy Storage, Technology, Green Energy, Innovation

12 points by PaulHoule 251 days ago | 7 comments

Batteries Will Not Solve Renewable Energy Storage Problem (2023) (dailysceptic.org)

Renewable Energy, Energy Storage, Battery Technology

3 points by mpweiher 266 days ago | 0 comments

Form Energy to build largest battery energy storage system in Maine (cleantechnica.com)

Energy Storage, Maine, Cleantech, Battery

8 points by namanyayg 276 days ago | 0 comments

Form Energy to Build World’s Largest Battery Energy Storage System in Maine (cleantechnica.com)

Energy Storage, Renewable Energy, Maine, Batteries

13 points by toomuchtodo 279 days ago | 4 comments

An open-source flow battery kit (dualpower.supply)