When thinking of obstacles that faces the renewable energy industry, the first thoughts that come to mind are government regulations and financing. And while these are major issues, another one that is only glossed over is energy storage.
There are technological advances in this area, but there is still no commercially viable solution to meet the demands of energy storage during peak times for energy generated from sources like wind and solar. This is not just a problem for developing nations, but it is an overall industry dilemma. Europe has proposed a supergrid that has Germany, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Denmark, Sweden, Ireland, and the UK working to connect Scotland’s wind turbines to Germany’s solar panels, riding the waves on the Belgian and Danish coasts, in addition to adding Norway’s hydro dams to the mix.
Many are concerned with the proposed €30 billion price tag of the European supergrid, but with the governments onboard and some experienced RE companies coming from these countries, that is secondary compared to the issue of energy storage if the supergrid actually came to fruition.
The simple fact is that whoever develops a cost-efficient and reliable energy storage system will be the company that others might want to buy stock in. So the race is on and ZBB Energy Corp. is providing a 500 kWh energy storage system for use in a micro-grid application at a US Army facility using ZBB’s next generation ZESS V3 Zinc Bromide flow battery. Research efforts will focus on evaluation of micro-grid technologies to provide off-grid, islanded power to specified areas at the base.
John Petersen did an article on Seeking Alpha that detailed the winners and losers in the energy storage business for Q1 2011. He wrote, “The first quarter of 2011 was great for shareholders of companies that are developing or manufacturing cheap energy storage products like lead-acid and flow batteries, but it was miserable for shareholders of Chinese battery manufacturers and companies that are developing cool energy storage products like lithium-ion batteries.”
He detailed that the big winner for the quarter was Axion Power International. The company’s chairman and CEO Thomas Granville said that with the recent events in Japan, there is a stronger need to integrate renewable and sustainable energy into national grids. He said, “If we want to increase the share of solar, wind, tidal, and other forms of RE, we will need a distributed power grid that can supply and accept power from a wide variety of sources.” He added, “One of the enabling technologies for such a grid will be affordable energy storage that allows one to hold energy generated when grid demand is low and utilize it in times of need or when demand is high.”
Granville believes that Axion’s PbC batteries will be an important solution to help bring renewable energy to its potential. He said, “We feel our proprietary PowerCube™ product, complete with batteries, with a battery management system, with remote monitoring and balancing capabilities, with all necessary integrated electronics, etc., is well suited to respond to on-grid, and off-grid, power demands such as UPS-back up; power smoothing; and power quality – to name a few.”
While Petersen, author of “Energy Storage Sector: Q1 2011 Winners and Losers,” is a former director of Axion holding common stock, he did mention other energy storage companies of interest. In fact, Petersen thinks that ZBB has a bright future. And he says that one firm, C&D Technologies, should be watched closely as it appears the company has emerged from restructuring presenting investors with a significant opportunity.
So here’s to the company that can create the right model to successfully store energy from various forms of renewable energy sources, we’re all waiting.
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