Green Tech

Mazda, EnerDel, Think Global, and others are partnering on a test project that will pair all-electric cars with stationary storage units as charging stations, EnerDel and Mazda announced this past week.

Mazda plans to convert some of its Mazda2 vehicles (known as the Mazda Demios in Japan) to all-electric cars running a Think drivetrain with EnerDel lithium ion batteries.

The Mazda2 (called the Demios in Japan) is expected to become available in the United States in 2010.

(Credit: Mazda)

The cars will be offered to Japanese customers through a rental car program, called the Tsukuba Environmental Style Test Project, which should be up and running by March 2010 in Tsukuba City, Japan, near Tokyo, according to Mazda.

U.S. battery manufacturer EnerDel has described the test project as the Japanese equivalent to Zipcar in the States, a program in which customers join a car club that offers car rentals on an hourly or daily basis.

Instead of recharging stations tapping directly into a smart grid, those in the Tsukuba test project will use stationary grid storage units also developed by EnerDel. The stationary storage units will enable the rapid charging of the all-electric Mazda2 cars, while avoiding the possibility of having to tap into a smart grid during peak usage hours.

"The unique combination of on-site battery storage with rapid charging allows the use of direct current throughout the system, sharply reducing the amount of time needed to charge a vehicle," according to a statement from EnerDel.

The recharging stations, which will draw from solar panels as well as grid power, will be located at Family Mart convenience stores in the Tsukuba City area.

Itochu, a Japanese conglomerate that has partnered with EnerDel on energy projects since 2003, owns the Family Mart chain. It was through a partnership with Itochu that EnerDel and Think Global converted and tested a fleet of trucks to all-electric vehicles for the Japanese Postal Service.

If you need more evidence that energy storage is much more than lithium ion batteries, take a look at the latest smart-grid utility storage projects.

The Department of Energy on Tuesday announced that $620 million in stimulus funding is going to 32 smart-grid programs, which will be coupled with another $1 billion in private money. A total of $770 million from government and industry sources in the next few years will go to energy storage, giving a number of storage technologies a dose of real-world experience. (See this PDF for details.)

(Credit: PG&E)

Notable in the list is the prominence of compressed-air energy storage and flow batteries, two technologies rarely discussed just a few years ago. Also in the mix are flywheels and using batteries for distributed energy storage in communities.

It's unlikely that all the DOE-aided projects will immediately prove to be commercially viable. But storage has clearly emerged as a key component in the vision of the smart grid. A number of start-ups are developing technologies they hope can address a specific storage application or undercut pumped hydro, considered the cheapest form of utility storage, on price. With pumped hydro, water is pumped uphill and released at peak times to run a generator. But its use is limited by geography.

Many of the 16 Energy Department power storage grants were focused on storing wind power, which is a variable source of energy. In California, for example, utility Pacific Gas & Electric plans to store the power generated by wind turbines at night, when turbines are most productive in underground caverns. During the day, when grid demand is higher, the air is released and passed through a turbine to make electricity.

The advantage of underground compressed air storage is that it can be cheaper than batteries and can store many hours worth of energy. PG&E forecasts that its Kern County, Calif., project can deliver 300 megawatts of power for 10 hours, enough to supply tens of thousands of homes.

Another novel technique is using metal tanks to store compressed air, a technology being developed by a Dartmouth College spin-off SustainX. The compressed air is released to run a hydraulic motor that drives a generator to make electricity.

Flow batteries, meanwhile, use tanks of liquid electrolyte solutions. When the two liquids interact, there is a chemical reaction that creates a flow of electricity.

An advantage of this approach is that store large amounts of energy and discharge relatively quickly, according to the Electricity Storage Association. One project will use technology from Premium Power, which makes tractor trailer-size zinc flow batteries to maintain a steady frequency on the grid and supply power during times of peak demand.

Different strokes
The variety of technologies points to the range of energy storage applications. Flywheels from award winner Beacon Power, for example, can absorb and discharge megawatts' worth of power to the grid but only in 15-minute bursts. Still, flywheels are getting more attention because they are a nonpolluting replacement to the natural-gas plants now used to smooth out short-term fluctuations in grid frequency, according to the company.

Click on the image for a slide show of different energy storage technologies.

(Credit: AEP)

Large batteries, too, will be further tested for grid storage. Duke Energy plans to use multiple battery types for 20 megawatts' worth of power delivery at the Notrees Windpower project in Texas. The "hybrid" battery system is being designed for two tasks: to smooth out short-term grid fluctuations and to supply hours' worth of power during the day, according to a Duke Energy representative.

Utility Portland General Electric in the next two years plans to install five batteries from auto battery supplier Ener1 to supply enough juice to power 400 homes for about an hour. Alternative chemistries, including lead carbon batteries from East Penn Manufacturing, will also be used.

One project will test the viability of used car batteries for grid storage. Lithium ion plug-in car batteries from A123 Systems will be used to supply 25 kilowatts for two hours in 20 community energy storage projects. The performance of lithium ion batteries degrades after many years in a car, but there is still sufficient storage and power for grid applications, utility executives say.

One year before starting production of the Chevy Volt, General Motors engineers say they are confident in the performance and safety of the electric car's batteries.

GM executives gave an update on the car's plans on Tuesday, saying engineers are making some tweaks to the design but that they are on schedule.

The Volt's chief engineer, Andrew Farah, also implied that GM is close to moving ahead with a project to make a Cadillac that uses the same gas-electric power train that the Volt uses. Last week, there were reports that the Converj concept had been given the green light internally, with expected car delivery in 2013.

For the Volt, GM is preparing the battery and auto manufacturing, which will happen in its home state of Michigan, with the process and product validation scheduled to begin early next year, executives said.

In the meantime, GM engineers are testing the Volt's battery pack, called the Voltec, and putting 80 prototype vehicles through the paces. In addition to crash tests for safety, they are testing the car's performance on a range of conditions, including very hot and cold temperatures, and steep hills.

This crash test shows that the orange T-shape battery pack of the Volt is not impacted during frontal collision, says GM.

(Credit: General Motors)

The Volt is a gas-electric hybrid, but unlike the Toyota Prius and other hybrids on the road now, the Volt moves only from electric motors. The gasoline engine is used to supply energy to the batteries through a generator.

Because it's a new car, GM still is trying to project what sort of performance to expect. Overall, engineers are happy, but they also know that climate conditions and driving style will affect the battery's performance, they said.

"Ten years is the target life (for the battery). Depending on how you use it and where you live, you could see significantly longer time," said David Wallace, engineering group manager for Voltec Battery Systems.

The biggest challenge is battery durability in very hot weather, he said. People who live in more temperate areas and do a lot of city driving will have more forgiving conditions, Wallace added.

"But even if you live in Phoenix, as long as you charge at night, and you run during the day, your battery will remain happy," he said.

During its testing, GM has to tune the chemistry of individual batteries, which will be supplied by LG Chem. Various tests, including crash tests, have indicated that battery safety is good, executives said.

For the car itself, auto engineers are now making adjustments to reduce the overall noise during times when the gas engine kicks on for longer rides.

Farah declined to say how big the gas tank will be, which will indicate what the overall driving range is, saying that decision will be made as late as possible.

Separately, Farah said GM's plan to produce an Opel in Europe that uses the Voltec powertrain is still on target, with a schedule roughly one year behind the Volt.

Photos: OnStar EV Lab connects to Chevy Volt

LOS ANGELES--Nissan Motor will keep the price of its upcoming battery-powered Leaf competitive with similar-size cars and expects to make money on the vehicle despite the cost of its launch, said Chief Executive Carlos Ghosn on Friday.

The five-passenger hatchback, which is being designed to have an all-electric range of 100 miles, would cost only 1 percent to 2 percent more than traditional combustion engine vehicles in its class, he said.

"On the pricing of the vehicle it is too early to say, but there will be no surprise," Ghosn said. "We know it will be the key to the mass market."

Nissan has not disclosed pricing on the Leaf, but has said it expects the car to be the first affordable, mass-market electric car when it goes on sale in the United States, Japan, and Europe by the end of 2010.

Nissan Leaf EV photos

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Nissan has bet heavily on electric cars and expects that by 2020, 10 percent of the world car market will be for electric vehicles. It has announced a series of partnerships with utilities and government agencies to advance technology where it believes it has a chance of seizing market leadership.

The automaker said on Friday that it would cooperate with Houston-based Reliant Energy, a subsidiary of NRG Energy in developing a charging infrastructure for electric cars at homes and near office buildings.

Ghosn, who was speaking to reporters at an event outside Dodger Stadium to kick off a U.S. marketing tour for the Leaf, said Nissan would roll out the car slowly in the U.S. market to get more feedback from consumers.

The Leaf is designed to draw power from a battery-pack developed with Japan's NEC that Nissan has said can be recharged overnight on a 220-volt connection.

Nissan has taken $1.6 billion in low-cost loans from the U.S. Department of Energy to revamp a plant in Smyrna, Tenn., to make the Leaf. The first models in the U.S. market will be imported from Japan.

Nissan's rivals have pushed competing battery-powered technologies. Toyota Motor dominates the market for traditional hybrids and has floated plans for a broader range of vehicles under the Prius name.

Others, such as General Motors and Fisker Automotive, are banking on plug-in designs that rely on batteries for short drives but also include a gasoline-powered generator to recharge the battery on longer trips.

'We will make money'< br /> Ghosn, who also leads Nissan's controlling partner Renault SA, said the key to bringing down the cost of producing electric cars would be to spread development costs across up to eight vehicles for the two companies.

"We think this technology is a technology we control, but we need scale. And that is why today we are building an overall capacity between Renault and Nissan of 500,000 cars and batteries a year that we are installing between the United States, Europe, and Japan," Ghosn told reporters.

"Hopefully, we are going to move upward. Because it is not about one car, it is about four cars for Nissan and four cars for Renault."

Leasing the car's batteries is a way to bring down the upfront cost, analysts say, and Ghosn said he preferred to lease batteries because Nissan can have control over replacement as technology improves.

But while Nissan plans to lease batteries on a global scale, executives said that they are still studying whether to do so in the U.S. market.

Ghosn said the Leaf would be profitable for Nissan. By contrast, GM has said it does not expect to make money on the first sales of its plug-in Volt, expected to be priced near $40,000 when it launches in late 2010.

"We will make money out of the Leaf," Ghosn said. "We have to make money, because if we don't make money the technology is condemned."

He added: "Everything we are doing today--and that is one of the reasons we are negotiating with the government--is to make sure this technology can continue to develop. We have a reasonable return on our investments and continue to develop the technology. And the consumer has to pay a reasonable price."

Story Copyright (c) 2009 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.

BOSTON--While hundreds of other companies are trying to make a better battery, start-up SustainX Energy Solutions is trying to find better ways to compress and store air to help utilities take full advantage of intermittent sources of energy like wind.

Dax Kepshire, president of SustainX, sketched out the company's technology and product plans here Thursday at the Fifth Annual Conference on Clean Energy. SustainX was spun out of Dartmouth College last year and received $4 million in funding from Polaris Venture Partners and Rockport Capital in August of this year. It now has 10 employees.

There are already a few compressed-air facilities in the world where off-peak electricity is used to pump air underground for storage. During peak-demand times, the air is released and pushed through a turbine to make electricity.

It's a method that's getting more attention now as a way to store several hours worth of wind power, for example.

Traditional compressed air storage uses underground formations to store compressed air, which is released when needed to make electricity. Click on the image for a photo gallery of other types of energy storage.

(Credit: PG&E)

The primary difference with SustainX's approach is that it doesn't need an underground salt dome or limestone cavern to store the compressed air. Instead, it proposes storing the compressed air in off-the-shelf tanks. Its technical goal in two years is to cram 4 megawatt-hours worth of stored energy in a 40-foot long container, said Kepshire. The tank-filled container would be able to deliver 1 megawatt of power.

In the near term, it plans to build a 100 kilowatt hour pilot system to test the efficiency and then to validate the larger model in 2011, Kepshire said.

Its technology is also very different from the existing compressed-air storage facilities. With traditional compressed-air energy storage, a machine called a compressor compacts air and pumps it underground. To make electricity, the air is released and run through special turbines and a generator to make electricity.

SustainX is designing a system that uses a hydraulic piston to compress air. When the air is released, it moves a hydraulic motor which is attached to a generator to make electricity, Kepshire explained.

The key to making the overall system is to reduce the energy loss that happens in the compression and decompression of air, he said. He expects the first pilot system to be about 50 percent efficient but the full system to be more around 70 percent efficient overall.

Compressed air energy storage has a lot of potential because it's relatively inexpensive and because utilities can store many hours worth of electricity. Pacific Gas & Electric is investigating locations for compressd-air storage capable of delivering 300 megawatts of electricity for 10 hours, or 3,000 megawatt-hours. By contrast, utility-scale battery storage systems in use now deliver 1 or 2 megawatts for a few hours.

SustainX doesn't have any customers yet, but Kepshire said the company is targeting utilities looking to use more renewable energy. The company's technology, if it proves efficient enough, can be scaled to stored many hours of energy and deliver large amounts of power, he said.

Green Plug's twist port universal charger.

(Credit: Green Plug)

Start-ups Green Plug and WiPower are working together on a universal wireless charger for portable devices, the companies said Thursday.

The partnership makes sense since GreenPlug has developed a protocol to allow power sources and portable devices to communicate, while WiPower has invented technology to transmit power wirelessly over short distances.

Green Plug's universal chargers allow portable electronic devices containing its embedded Greentalk chip to be charged from a universal port. Once a device is plugged in to a Green Plug charger port, the charger's Greentalk protocol reads the chip inside the device to determine the power supply needed to charge it. It then tunes its power output to charge the device accordingly.

WiPower has a developed technology that can transmit power over short distances wirelessly. You can place a device on a WiPower pad in any position, and it automatically begins recharging.

Powermat makes a wireless charging dock that works with cases made for specific devices.

(Credit: Powermat)

Here's the caveat. For this to become a reality, manufacturers must opt to embed Greentalk chips into their products instead of offering individual power adapters for each model they make.

The idea is considered green because millions of chargers are thrown away each year when people buy new devices and discard the old chargers. Embracing the Greentalk chip could theoretically prevent millions of chargers from being manufactured in the first place.

The idea is not entirely unique, though. Powermat makes a pad for wirelessy charging any Powermat-enabled device. In order to work with it, the device must be placed inside a special case that houses a Powermat receiver programmed to work with the charger and a specific device's needs. Users can also buy a cube with eight different types of ports that can sit on the mat and be plugged in to compatible devices.

A Humvee made by American General.

(Credit: AM General)

Lithium-ion battery manufacturer EnerDel has signed an 18-month, $1.29 million contract with the U.S. Army to design and test hybrid battery options for the Humvee.

Trying to power the iconic fuel-guzzling High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle (HMMWV aka Humvee) with a battery, may seem like trying to put out a fire with a garden hose. But a lithium-ion battery system can deliver a lot of power from a battery quickly, giving a truck like the Humvee the thrust it requires.

EnerDel, a subsidiary of Ener1, will collaborate with the U.S. Army's Tank Automotive Research, Development, and Engineering Center (TARDEC) on four possible power systems that could be implemented in the XM1124 version of the Humvee.

The company, which specializes in battery cell chemistry as well as the electronics and battery system designs, said it already has two viable options. EnerDel has developed a lithium-tatinate system in conjunction with Argonne National Laboratory that could accommodate the acceleration and hard braking required for such a powerful vehicle like the Humvee. It also has a lithium-manganese system that would give a vehicle extra-long range and allow electronics to be run off the battery for extended periods of time before needing to be recharged.

As part of the 18-month contract, EnerDel will also be involved in testing the systems under "extreme performance simulations." In addition to putting the test vehicles through the usual Humvee paces of wading through water and mountain climbing, there will also be an endurance test.

That will include seeing how a hybrid Humvee fares as a power plant for a field hospital or temporary military post. The requirement makes perfect sense given the ease with which a Humvee can be transported to hard-to-reach areas. One of its key features has always been that it could be dropped in to virtually any terrain by parachute.

A Humvee being parachuted out of a plane.

(Credit: AM General)

The hybrid Humvee will also be more stealthy. Anyone who's had a close call with a Prius knows how dangerously silent hybrids can be in total battery mode. The hybrid version of the Humvee will have a powered-down "silent watch" mode that will allow it to run with its diesel generator off, reducing not only its noise, but also its thermal signature to avoid detection.

As always with major military project announcements, the company involved was quick to point out the down-the-road commercial application of its technology.

"In keeping with a long tradition, we also expect that innovations perfected here will have important benefits for the commercial markets," EnerDel President Rick Stanley said in a a statement.

There has already been interest in Raser Technologies' H3E, a plug-in hybrid version of a Hummer-branded SUV called the H3. While not truly a Hummer (the civilian version of the Humvee), the "Hummer-light" descendant has garnered the interest of even the most discerning Hummer enthusiasts.

So if EnerDel's batteries might be good enough to power a Hummvee, why haven't commercial automakers been knocking? They have actually. The company has signed research partnerships of varying commitment levels with Think Global, Fisker Automotive, Volvo, and Nissan. Its parent company, Ener1, is also working with U.S. utilities to develop smart grid storage units.

Start-up ReVolt Technology is developing rechargeable zinc air batteries, a technology it says promises longer runtime for consumer electronics and plug-in vehicles.

The Switzerland-based company, which was spun out of a Norwegian research institute five years ago, anticipates commercializing a rechargeable coin-size batteries next year. But the technology has the potential to be a cheaper and more energy-dense alternative to lithium ion batteries in consumer electronics, grid storage, and transportation, according to CEO James McDougall.

The components of ReVolt's current rechargeable battery technology include an air electrode, an interface below it in blue, and a zinc electrode.

(Credit: ReVolt Technologies)

Zinc air batteries, which are already used in hearing aids, create an electrical current through a chemical reaction between zinc and the oxygen in air. Researchers have pursued rechargeable zinc air batteries for many years because zinc is relatively abundant and the internal chemistry, safe.

But there remain some technical challenges. After multiple charge-discharge cycle, the anode in zinc air batteries can become damaged and stop working. McDougall said ReVolt is trying to reach between 500 and 2,000 charge cycles, depending on whether the battery is used for consumer electronics or large-scale storage.

ReVolt engineers are working on a new design in which a zinc slurry is pumped through tubes that act as an air electrode, causing the chemical reaction that produces a current, McDougall explained. He expects it will take four or five years to commercialize the technology for large-scale applications, such as grid storage.

The company has raised 24 million Euros in funding, including an investment from power generator RWE of Germany, which is looking at the zinc air for storage on the electricity grid. ReVolt has applied for an ARPA-E grant aimed at breakthrough energy technologies but was not chosen in the first round of awards.

For vehicles, it makes sense to combine the relatively large energy storage of zinc air batteries with other storage technologies, McDougall said. Power-dense lithium ion batteries could be used for boosts of acceleration and ultracapacitors could capture energy from regenerative braking.

"You could increase the range of next-generation of electric vehicles with hybrid storage... You could get three times the range, eliminate the safety concerns, and cut the cost of the system," he said.

Updated at 10:55 AM pt with corrected timing for coin-size battery release.

Simon Hacket and Emilis Prelgauskas at their 313-mile mark in Coober Pedy, South Australia.

(Credit: Hackett)

A record for a Tesla Roadster driven on a single charge was set at 313 miles (501 km) in Australia on Tuesday.

Tesla Roadster owner Simon Hackett and his friend Emilis Prelgauskas drove his electric sports car from Alice Springs, Northern Territory, to Coober Pedy, South Australia, as part of an alternative-fuel vehicle rally called the Global Green Challenge.

The Tesla's electric-charge port door was sealed shut at the start of the 313-mile journey and the trip was filmed for a documentary, as well as monitored by contest officials. The Tesla's lithium ion battery, which the company assures owners will last over 200 miles between charges under normal driving circumstances, had 3 miles to spare when the team reached its destination in Coober Pedy, according to Hackett's chronicles of the race experience on his company blog. (Hackett happens to also be the founder and managing director of Internode, an Australian national broadband and Internet services company.)

Hackett said in his blog the achievement is actually a record for any production electric car, not just a Tesla Roadster, which is why his team was so careful to record it. To squeeze as much distance out of the Tesla's battery as they could, Hackett and Prelgauskas tried to drive at a consistent speed of 55 kph (roughly 34 mph) for a large portion of the almost 12-hour journey.

"The security seal was applied to the charge port door when we started the journey. As this is being done as part of the Global Green Challenge, we have a full set of official verifiers here who will attest to the results and to achieving the outcome. We were followed along the journey by our support crew and a documentary film crew--so we have it on film," said Hackett.

While Tesla Motors is not an official sponsor of the contest or Hackett, the company has shown support by spreading the news of Hackett's success. It's not hard to imagine why as Tesla poises for a major retail expansion.

The stunt may certainly speak to consumers who likely drive nowhere near 313 miles in a single day, but are still reluctant to hem themselves in with a car restricted to a limited number of miles between recharges.