Battery Metals

The latest drone shot of Tesla’s Gigafactory 1 in Nevada from January 23, 2018, reveals that developments along the north and south ends of the factory have remained relatively unchanged since August 2017, nearly six months ago. Aside from some newly paved parking lots in front of the building that houses several hundred vehicles, the latest terrain map of the area surrounding Tesla’s massive battery facility depict what appears to be a slow down in building expansion at the site.

But that’s not to say that Tesla hasn’t been busier than ever, with activity continuing at a frenzied pace inside the building, according to sources working at the factory.

Construction permits filed by Tesla in July 2017 revealed a $4.9M project addendum to an existing Section G of the facility and a $9.18M HVAC system for an ‘air separation yard’ project. Permits for several other multi-million dollar projects were filed at the time, but nothing in regards to new sections being added to the building.

As we noted in an earlier report this month, Tesla is currently attempting to hire numerous workers for the Nevada site, with CEO Elon Musk issuing an open invitation to interested applicants via his personal Twitter account. During that time, Gigafactory 1 featured job postings for numerous departments; from managers, material handlers to engineers.

Looking at Tesla’s list of available jobs in the massive battery factory – among the currently available slots are Quality Technicians, Battery Pack Engineer, Battery Module Engineer, and a Production Supervisor for Drive Units – one can presume that the hiring focus is on roles that will help ramp Model 3 production. While Gigafactory 1 is already producing the batteries and drivetrain for the Model 3, all eyes are on the company’s ability to scale production to meet its twice-delayed guidance of 5,000 vehicles produced per week, now expected to take place by the end of Q2 2018.

Tesla’s Gigafactory 1, once completed, will be the largest building in the world in terms of physical footprint, with the entire facility set to cover an entire area of 13 million square feet. Currently, the site only occupies a fraction of that number.

Gigafactory 1 is one of the California-based electric carmaker and energy company’s most important facilities, tasked with the automated production of Model 3’s battery pack and drivetrain, components that are incredibly pertinent to Tesla’s goal of manufacturing and delivering its most disruptive electric vehicle to date. In addition, Tesla manufacturers its energy solutions at the site, such as the grid-scale Powerpack battery storage unit, most recently proving its worth at the world’s largest battery site in Australia , and the home Powerwall unit.

A lot of the focus on making all-electric vehicles truly practical revolves around how far they can be driven on a single full charge of the battery. Although more and more batteries can be added to increase range, the weight that adds causes its own problems. Now it appears Porsche is pursuing a slightly different way of boosting all-electric range by employing an 800-volt system in its new Mission E, which as well as offering a 400km range, can also be recharged in as little as 20 minutes.

What Porsche is doing is increasing voltage instead of current, and this 800-volt system is double the voltage most automakers are working with at the moment. The company has some experience already with this way of doing things as it has already used it in its 919 Hybrid Le Mans racer. Through increasing voltage instead of current, there’s no need to employ thicker cables and that helps to avoid a huge increase in weight.

However, using a system like this in a car doesn’t come without its own issues, and the need for charging and battery hardware that can operate at 800 volts is the main drawback of opting for this way of doing things. Porsche is currently working with electronics giants LG and Panasonic on the chemistry and packs, and they expect to see a five percent increase in lithium-ion battery performance per-year in the not-too-distant future. The big problem here though is the need for a dedicated 800-volt charger, which will inevitably severely restrict the ability for Porsche Mission E drivers to find places they can recharge away from their home.

The prototype recharger Porsche is working on is an accumulator, which actually stores the power instead of simply delivering it to the car’s battery straight from the mains supply. The system the German automaker is developing is said to store enough power to recharge three vehicles one after another, without the need to access the grid. Porsche says that eventually, when out on the road, drivers will be able to reserve a place at a network of Turbo Charger stations.

BMW’s head of powertrain development believes that hydrogen’s suitability as a future fuel may only be short lived, with advances in battery technology set to overtake the advantages offered by fuel cell vehicles

Speaking with TMR at the global launch of the new X2 in Portugal, BMW’s powertrain development chief, Wolfgang Stütz, was cautious about the long-term viability of hydrogen as a fuel source, claiming that advances in battery technology could see battery electric vehicles become viable as a primary source of production.

The complexities of using hydrogen as a fuel, including storage, and the need to turn the fuel into a source of energy – electricity – on board the vehicle are just some of the disadvantages weighing fuel cell electric vehicles (or FCEVs) down. Rapid refuelling times and a user experience closer to traditional internal combustion vehicles, however, make the technology an attractive option.

According to Stütz those advantages may only last a short time, with predicted advances in battery technology, both in terms of capacity and charge times, likely to see FCEV vehicles give way to battery electric vehicles, or BEVs.
“If the battery technology and the cost especially decrease, and the infrastructure for charging will be in a good way then I think there’s not a necessity to change to hydrogen,” Stutz explained. “Because in principle they use the same energy, they use electric energy and hydrogen is only the battery for the vehicle.”

Hydrogen as a fuel wasn’t completely ruled out though, with BMW keeping its options open for the time being including showing an FCEV version of the previous 5 Series GT at events throughout 2017, and working on refuelling solutions though its Designworks subsidiary, in partnership with Shell.

“It strongly depends on all these developments [battery capacity and charging times] but because nobody can give the exact answer, BMW is also working on hydrogen,” Stütz said.

“It’s clear you can not say ‘forget it, this concept doesn’t have a future’ we have to be on the train.”

Although Stütz was unable to supply a timeline for future battery developments, Wieland Bruch, spokesperson for BMW i was able to suggest a rough outline for how the e-mobility division might advance its battery technology.

“We can basically say that every ten years you have double the energy density,” Bruch said. “When you follow how we launched the BMW i3 and what battery we have currently within the same dimension, that is already 50% [higher capacity] in five years, so that seems to be the right rule.”

BMW already has plans in place to introduce electric versions of the X3 SUV and Mini hatch, to join the range alongside the i3 EV and plug-in hybrid versions of the 3 Series, 5 Series, X5, and 7 Series.

If the blowup over President Trump’s new solar tariff proves anything, it proves that the renewable energy transition is inevitable. A new hydroelectricity project for the City of San Diego, California is a case in point. The city recently raised the level of an existing hydropower dam to hold more water, and now it is considering a massive new energy storage element that would help the grid support more wind and solar power.

The project provides support for the view that the new solar tariff is little more than a “speed bump” on the road to more sustainable future. Trump’s tariff is all but certain to disrupt the lives of individual solar workers, business owners and investors to some degree, but the overall impact is beginning to look like more smoke than fire.

Pushing the envelope on US hydropower

You wouldn’t know it from all the buzz over the latest high tech solar cells and wind turbines, but until very recently hydropower accounted for the lion’s share of the nation’s renewable energy pie.

That situation is rapidly changing. With wildlife conservation and environmental impacts in mind, there are few remaining opportunities to construct entirely new hydropower facilities in the US. In fact, this year the US Energy Information Agency expects wind energy to surpass hydropower for the first time ever.

There are still opportunities for growth in hydropower production, though. The US Department of Energy has been experimenting with ways to squeeze more electricity out of existing hydropower dams, and some interesting developments are occurring in the fields of wave energy, tidal energy and low impact hydrokinetic electricity.

It’s also worth noting that the importance of hydropower goes beyond the number of megawatts produced by the nation’s hydropower dams. The US Department of Energy foresees that hydropower provides the kind of stable, on-demand electricity supply that helps balance the variability of wind and solar.

Just a couple of weeks ago, the Energy Department posted an article describing how hydropower supports wind and solar. Here are some key points:

As the grid evolves in the 21st century, hydropower will be increasingly valued for its ability to respond quickly to disturbances in the grid and be dispatched on demand

Hydropower’s flexibility means it can help ensure power supply and quality even when high levels of variable power sources are on the grid. When countries run most or all of their power systems on renewable energy, it is often enabled by significant hydropower resources.

The Energy Department’s 2016 Hydropower Vision lays out the potential for the US to produce 30 gigawatts more hydropower than currently, with much of the increase coming from existing dams.

The 2016 report also supports an earlier Energy Department analysis from 2012, which describes scenarios for achieving 80 percent renewable energy by 2050.

Hydropower + energy storage for San Diego

That brings us to the new proposal to add an energy storage component to an existing hydropower facility owned by the San Diego Water Authority.

The project has its roots in the city’s recent $1.5 billion Emergency and Carryover Storage Project, designed to provide water supply for up to six months in case of systemwide distruption due to earthquakes or prolonged drought.

Two of four major facilities in sprawling project were constructed under design and management services provided by the A-list firm Black and Veatch. The company’s award-winning work included raising the existing San Vicente Dam an additional 117 feet, which doubled the size of the San Vincente Reservoir.

The latest twist is a proposal to add 500 megawatts of energy storage to the system. Dubbed the San Vicente Energy Storage Facility, it would have the goal of increasing “the efficiency and availability of renewable energy for the region,” as described by Black and Veatch. Here’s more:

The SVESF will store energy by pumping water to an upper reservoir when energy demand is low and releasing water from the upper reservoir through turbines when energy demand is high. The “pumped hydro” energy storage solution would support power grid operations and enable significant and sustained integration of renewable wind and solar energy into the power supply mix.

If you are already familiar with pumped hydro energy storage systems, this will ring a few bells:

During peak energy demand, water would flow downhill to turn hydroelectric turbines. During off-peak periods, including daytime when renewable energy supplies exceed demand, water would be pumped to the upper reservoir.

To ice the cake, the added revenue from SVESF would provide a funding stream for renovating the system’s aging infrastructure, without a consequent increase in water rates.

The new solar tariff: a hiccup, not a seizure

Circling back around to that solar tariff, it’s true that startups have been much in the spotlight as the US transitions to renewable energy, and some of them are exposed to the negative consequences of Trump’s decision.

However, diversified legacy companies like Black and Veatch also come in for their share of the credit for pushing the US renewable energy sector forward, and they may be less exposed to fallout from the solar tariff.

The San Diego energy storage proposal, for example, is just part of Black and Veatch’s long term strategy for growing its renewables business.

Last September, the company partnered with the Renewable Energy Test Center in California to launch a new service called “energy storage bankability.”

The new partnership will test and validate emerging energy storage technologies, providing a significant assist to new products on the verge of commercialization.

The Renewable Energy Test Center’s role is to help predict the lifetime performance of a product. Black & Veatch is contributing its experience in “independent assessment of alternative energy technologies and the design and construction of PV plants, microgrids and other systems that deploy PV and energy storage technologies.”

Solar tariff or not, it looks like renewables have a bright future in the US.

Through the use of dry fermentation technology, Bekon biogas plants offer the option of advanced and efficient biogas production. With a low energy consumption, they achieve a constant, maximum output of high methane content biogas, through fermentation of solid substrates. These include, for example, organic and garden waste, organic fractions from residual waste processing, solid cattle manure and other stackable organic wastes. The resulting digestate is noted for its excellent structural properties and a comparatively low water content, which therefore makes it ideally suited for aerobic conditioning and further treatment to high grade, nutrient rich compost or organic fertiliser for soil improvement.

The Bekon Mini system allows this type of dry fermentation to be conducted even in the smallest spaces and can also be used with low input quantities. The new biogas plant in Enger has an annual input capacity of 8,500 tonnes of biowaste (kitchen and garden waste), from which some 1.1 million m³ of biogas can be produced. This is used both for the generation of electricity (1,210,000 kWh/a) and for heating (1,200,000 kWh/a). It is calculated that this will allow about 350 households to be supplied with electricity from the Bekon system.

Furthermore, Bekon systems are not just noted for their high operational stability and safe disposal, but also for the greatest possible energy efficiency. As a result, only a fraction of the energy generated flows back into the plant to supply its own energy demand. In Enger, only 8% of the electricity generated is used for operation of the biogas plant itself. The remaining majority of 92% is fed into the regional power grid. In addition, the recovered waste heat will, in the near future, be utilised externally, for example, through feed-in to a local or district heating network or for use in drying materials. In this case as well, only a small fraction of the thermal energy is needed for operation of the plant itself.

A type of battery first invented nearly five decades ago could catapult to the forefront of energy storage technologies, thanks to a new finding by researchers at MIT.

The battery, based on electrodes made of sodium and nickel chloride and using a new type of metal mesh membrane, could be used for grid-scale installations to make intermittent power sources such as wind and solar capable of delivering reliable baseload electricity.

New metal-mesh membrane could solve longstanding problems and lead to inexpensive power storage.

The findings are being reported today in the journal Nature Energy, by a team led by MIT professor Donald Sadoway, postdocs Huayi Yin and Brice Chung, and four others.

Although the basic battery chemistry the team used, based on a liquid sodium electrode material, was first described in 1968, the concept never caught on as a practical approach because of one significant drawback: It required the use of a thin membrane to separate its molten components, and the only known material with the needed properties for that membrane was a brittle and fragile ceramic. These paper-thin membranes made the batteries too easily damaged in real-world operating conditions, so apart from a few specialized industrial applications, the system has never been widely implemented.

But Sadoway and his team took a different approach, realizing that the functions of that membrane could instead be performed by a specially coated metal mesh, a much stronger and more flexible material that could stand up to the rigors of use in industrial-scale storage systems.

“I consider this a breakthrough,” Sadoway says, because for the first time in five decades, this type of battery — whose advantages include cheap, abundant raw materials, very safe operational characteristics, and an ability to go through many charge-discharge cycles without degradation — could finally become practical.

While some companies have continued to make liquid-sodium batteries for specialized uses, “the cost was kept high because of the fragility of the ceramic membranes,” says Sadoway, the John F. Elliott Professor of Materials Chemistry. “Nobody’s really been able to make that process work,” including GE, which spent nearly 10 years working on the technology before abandoning the project.

As Sadoway and his team explored various options for the different components in a molten-metal-based battery, they were surprised by the results of one of their tests using lead compounds. “We opened the cell and found droplets” inside the test chamber, which “would have to have been droplets of molten lead,” he says. But instead of acting as a membrane, as expected, the compound material “was acting as an electrode,” actively taking part in the battery’s electrochemical reaction.

“That really opened our eyes to a completely different technology,” he says. The membrane had performed its role — selectively allowing certain molecules to pass through while blocking others — in an entirely different way, using its electrical properties rather than the typical mechanical sorting based on the sizes of pores in the material.

In the end, after experimenting with various compounds, the team found that an ordinary steel mesh coated with a solution of titanium nitride could perform all the functions of the previously used ceramic membranes, but without the brittleness and fragility. The results could make possible a whole family of inexpensive and durable materials practical for large-scale rechargeable batteries.

The use of the new type of membrane can be applied to a wide variety of molten-electrode battery chemistries, he says, and opens up new avenues for battery design. “The fact that you can build a sodium-sulfur type of battery, or a sodium/nickel-chloride type of battery, without resorting to the use of fragile, brittle ceramic — that changes everything,” he says.

The work could lead to inexpensive batteries large enough to make intermittent, renewable power sources practical for grid-scale storage, and the same underlying technology could have other applications as well, such as for some kinds of metal production, Sadoway says.

Sadoway cautions that such batteries would not be suitable for some major uses, such as cars or phones. Their strong point is in large, fixed installations where cost is paramount, but size and weight are not, such as utility-scale load leveling. In those applications, inexpensive battery technology could potentially enable a much greater percentage of intermittent renewable energy sources to take the place of baseload, always-available power sources, which are now dominated by fossil fuels.

The research team included Fei Chen, a visiting scientist from Wuhan University of Technology; Nobuyuki Tanaka, a visiting scientist from the Japan Atomic Energy Agency; MIT research scientist Takanari Ouchi; and postdocs Huayi Yin, Brice Chung, and Ji Zhao. The work was supported by the French oil company Total S.A. through the MIT Energy Initiative.