Lithium News

Energy storage developer Limejump has entered the first aggregated unit to go live on to National Grid’s balancing mechanism (BM) in the UK.

The so-called virtual power plant (VPP) will offer access to renewables, battery storage and demand response sites to the £1bn annual market.

Limejump will connect the distributed storage and generation assets within the VPP to a communication platform developed by Siemens and provide National Grid with effectively a single asset.

“This move means that a farmer with a solar installation or a supermarket with excess energy from its cooling units will be on the same footing as a giant power station,” said Limejump chief executive Erik Nygard.

The London developer received dispensation from UK energy regulator Ofgem to enter the first aggregated unit on the BM.

National Grid published earlier this month a roadmap to widen access to the BM to all technologies and providers ahead of a new pan-European reserve market, the Trans European Replacement Reserves Exchange, due to go live in December 2019.

Real Engineering Dives Into The Total System Efficiency Of Hydrogen Fuel Cell Vehicles

Hydrogen, oh hydrogen. In the race to zero-emission vehicles, there is no clear winner. Battery electric vehicles require heavy batteries to carry them over long distances while the less-developed suite of technologies supporting hydrogen vehicles results in efficiencies that drive the price of hydrogen up, especially at current low volumes. But there’s more to it than that.

YouTube channel Real Engineering took on the challenge of comparing current hydrogen fuel cell technologies with their battery electric vehicle counterparts and came out with a 15 minute video that beautifully walks through the process. It’s a great one-stop shop if you want to get up to speed on hydrogen and how it compares to battery electric vehicles in terms of emissions, efficiencies, and technologies.

Hydrogen cars have been a polarizing topic for years. At its core, a hydrogen car is an electric vehicle with a small onboard battery that is continuously charged from a hydrogen fuel cell that pulls stored hydrogen gas, mixes it with oxygen from the atmosphere, and runs it through a proton exchange membrane, releasing electricity along the way. The only byproduct of this process is water, making the vehicle essentially just an electric vehicle that gets its power from a different type of onboard battery drivetrain. I’ve driven both popular models for CleanTechnica — the Toyota Mirai and the Honda Clarity Fuel Cell — and found that they both drove and operated like “normal” vehicles, which is great.

Behind the scenes, it’s more complicated than that and it all starts at the pump. Let’s dive into the video. It kicks off by taking a look at how global automotive markets are responding to hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. In the US, companies and consumers are slowly moving towards hydrogen. This is happening in parallel with a slow buildout of the hydrogen fueling station network that’s required to fuel them every 300 miles or so.

A Network Of Fueling Stations

The relatively slow buildout of the fueling network allows early adopters living near a hydrogen fueling station to buy the car and use it around town or on any of the growing network of stations. The network is expected to grow over time and, as it does, the capacity of each station and the cost per kilogram of the hydrogen served up should continue to fall over time as the technology matures and scales up.

Japan, on the other hand, is diving head first into hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, with its home team automakers Honda and Toyota backing the charge. It is aiming to have 160 fueling stations for its island residents by March of 2021 to support a fleet of 40,000 hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (FCV), dwarfing the 50 stations California is aiming to have by 2020. It expects the number of stations to balloon to 900 by 2030 to support a fleet of 800,000 FCVs.

Specific Energy

The numbers behind hydrogen are compelling. Its specific energy — or the amount of energy it contains in a given weight — is far higher than that of lithium-ion batteries. One kilogram of hydrogen can store 236 times more energy than a kilogram of lithium-ion batteries. That’s not even in the same ballpark and speaks to the reason hydrogen FCVs can refuel so quickly.

When it comes to onboard storage of energy, hydrogen has the advantage, as hydrogen is stored in high-pressure tanks underneath the vehicle. These lightweight tanks are used to store the high-pressure hydrogen, which stores a much larger capacity of energy in the form of hydrogen compared to lithium-ion batteries. Energy stored in batteries requires many more battery cells for each extra mile added to the range of the vehicle. That means more weight and weight that the vehicle has to overcome for all those miles. In terms of the weight of the energy storage in the vehicle, hydrogen clearly has the advantage, even when the fuel cell and its infrastructure are taken into account.

The energy is transferred into hydrogen fuel cell vehicles physically, by pumping pressurized gaseous hydrogen into the vehicle. Battery electric vehicles (BEVs), on the other hand, are charged up by running electricity into them (electricity which is stored in chemical batteries). Today, that takes time and is one of the primary drawbacks of BEVs. But that’s where things get complicated. Let’s dive into the dirty details behind how these two clean energy technologies fuel up.

Unlike electricity for battery electric cars, the infrastructure to produce, compress, transport, and sell hydrogen does not really exist today, and as a new technology, each of these stages cost more than not just the existing electricity infrastructure, but also more than gasoline and diesel. Electric vehicles went through their own growth curve, and over the last 10 years, we have seen the cost of the equipment required to charge them continue to come down as volumes go up.

The Tesla wall charger, for example, was $1,200 when I purchased our Model S at the end of 2015, but it goes for $500 today. DC fast charging infrastructure is still in the early stages of this expensive ramp, and with each drop in price, a newer, faster charger seems to come out, keeping prices high while advancing the technology. Hydrogen fueling stations are following a similar model, where the price of stations remains extremely high — $1 million to $5 million per station — but the capacity of the station continues to increase over time.

Production Option 1 — Steam Reforming

Now that we have a station, we need to get some hydrogen to push through it. The video shares how hydrogen today comes from two primary sources, with steam reforming producing the vast majority of the hydrogen used today. Steam reforming requires a significant amount of heat to generate the steam that allows for the extraction of the hydrogen from the natural gas.

Hydrogen production through steam reforming also produces pollution, so even if the car generates zero emissions at the point of use, the process of producing hydrogen through steam reforming does. Similarly, battery electric vehicles use electricity from the grid that it still largely generated from fossil fuels, but with steam reforming, the resulting hydrogen actually has less energy in it than the incoming natural gas that was used to make it. In net, we’ve reported before that battery electric cars are notably greener than hydrogen cars using hydrogen from steam reformation.

Production Option 2 — Electrolysis

Electrolysis, which uses electricity to split apart the hydrogen and oxygen in water, can also be done at scale and with renewable electricity as the input. It has the potential to provide a solution for the zero-emission production of hydrogen. The problem is that it requires even more energy input than steam reforming, with a 30% loss of energy through the process.

With the intermittency of renewables, the ability to store excess generation at utility scale with this technology could be a potential winner, especially given the relatively low cost to store hydrogen at much larger volumes compared to lithium-ion batteries. However, the market is not moving towards hydrogen at all — rather, we are seeing larger and larger lithium-ion battery installations, like Tesla’s flagship installation of a whopping 129 MWh of storage in South Australia and even bigger plans for California’s PG&E and SDG&E.

Production Option 3 — Proton-Exchange Membrane

Proton-exchange membrane electrolysis allows for the extraction of hydrogen from water by using a proton-exchange membrane that only allows protons to flow through it. The filter splits up the hydrogen and oxygen. When it’s all said and done, stable H2 — or hydrogen gas — is produced. The process is currently around 80% efficient, making it significantly more efficient than straight-up electrolysis.

Scientists working on PEM electrolysis believe they can achieve an efficiency of 82% to 86% around 2030 with this process, which would help drive production costs down further. PEM is unique in that it can produce hydrogen onsite at fueling stations, further eliminating emissions and expenses related to offsite production, transportation, and bulk storage.

Storage

Hydrogen is extremely inefficient to store because it’s simply very spread out and it’s physical properties make it harder to compress than any other gas with the exception of helium. That makes compressing hydrogen into a liquid for transport and storage almost a showstopper — just based on the inefficiency of compressing it into a liquid. Cryogenically compressing hydrogen into a liquid by supercooling it down to -250°C makes this possible, but the sheer amount of energy required to supercool and process the hydrogen results in a 40% efficiency loss using today’s technologies.

Compressing hydrogen through normal methods is more efficient, but still incurs a total system efficiency loss that stacks on top of all of the other system losses. Compression of hydrogen to 790 ATM is the most realistic optimization of efficiency vs cost of transport, but even compression to this level still consumes 13% of the energy contained in the hydrogen.

Alternately, hydrogen can be produced locally, at or near the fueling stations, as we mentioned above when talking about PEM electrolysis, but you lose economies of scale. This results in further inefficiencies that weigh the total system down and drive the cost up.

From Storage To Movement

Now that the energy is in the car, the next step is to look at using it to convert energy into motion.

Remember — hydrogen fuel cell vehicles are just electric cars that store their energy as hydrogen instead of in a battery. To use the energy, it must first convert the hydrogen back into electricity. That’s where the onboard fuel cell comes in.

With pure hydrogen as the input, fuel cells are 60% efficient at converting the stored energy in hydrogen into electricity. Battery electric vehicles, on the other hand, have losses related to charging, which is 90% efficient, converting the stored DC power to AC for the motors through an inverter, which is 90% efficient, and battery leakage — a phenomenon whereby batteries lose their charge over time. These inefficiencies stack up for a total efficiency from the wall to the wheels of around 75%.

Summary

The video from Real Engineering is simply chock full of data and warrants a watch or two for anyone looking to get a better understanding of how hydrogen fuel cell vehicles work and how they stack up from an efficiency standpoint compared to battery electric vehicles.

It is important to note that, while the data shared in the video makes it clear that today, hydrogen fuel cell vehicles have far more efficiency losses than battery electric vehicles and cost more to fill up than current gasoline vehicles, they are also several years behind battery electric vehicles in terms of innovation. Given sufficient time and focus on optimizing the total system efficiency, these zero-emission vehicles could be what our kids or grandkids drive around in … or, rather, get driven around in by the inevitably autonomous pilots in our future. That said, battery electric vehicle technology also continues to evolve, get more efficient, get cheaper, and get more convenient.

Speaking of total system losses, you didn’t think I’d finish up without putting a nice little bow on the overall picture, did you? Looking at the best-case FCV efficiency today compared to the current state of BEV technology being used by Tesla’s vehicles, the efficiency of FCVs is less than half that of a BEV.

This is assuming the best technologies are used in the generation of electricity, electrolysis, compression, fuel cell, and onboard electric propulsion system in the vehicle. There are plenty of ways to do this cheaper and to do it in a way that harms the planet more, using hydrogen sourced from steam reforming, but there are also opportunities to further improve these systems to obtain a higher efficiency and lower cost.

Similarly, battery electric vehicles are ever-evolving beasts and can be optimized with onsite rooftop solar generation, better motors, better inverters, and better chargers. Batteries are perhaps the largest component of the equation — not because they have high losses but because they are the largest single block of expense in electric vehicles. As we saw with Panasonic’s announcement last month about reducing the amount of cobalt used in batteries for Tesla vehicles, opportunities abound.

Consumers Energy Co. plans to stop burning coal to power its electric plants by 2040, and it has a clear path to get there using additional renewable energy generation, regional market purchases and advanced energy saving technology, according to the energy plan it filed earlier this year with the Michigan Public Service Commission.

DTE Energy Co. also has suggested in regulatory filings that it intends to wean itself off coal by 2040 by building two natural-gas power plants and quadrupling renewable-energy generation.

But the state’s dominant electric utilities plan totally different paths toward eliminating coal, reducing carbon emissions by 80 percent over the next 20 to 30 years and delivering efficient power.

How will they do it?

DTE’s path toward zero coal is tougher because the Detroit-based power giant currently relies on coal to produce 65 percent of its power. On the other hand, Jackson-based Consumers uses coal for only 32 percent.

Over the next 22 years, Consumers said in its integrated resource plan, filed June 15, that it will replace that 32 percent coal with at least 5,000 megawatts of renewable energy and take other cleaner power steps. It plans to attack the demand side of the equation by ramping up efficiency programs and using data-driven technology to guide incentives, known as “demand response,” for customers to reduce electricity from energy-hogging air conditioners.

Consumers already uses natural gas to power 12 percent of its power plants and said it won’t increase that. Over the past decade, as it has closed coal-fired plants, Consumers has replaced those by purchasing gas plants to generate 1,488 megawatts of power. By 2040, Consumers says gas will fuel about 10 percent by upping other power sources, including solar arrays.

DTE has been approved by the MPSC to build a 1,100-megawatt natural gas plant in East China Township by 2023 to replace three coal-fired plants. Several environmental and renewable energy groups are challenging DTE’s plans, but a reversal seems unlikely.

DTE’s natural gas power generation now is 5 percent of production. Documents show that would grow to 20 percent and possibly even 30 percent by 2030 if the company builds a second $1 billion gas plant.

However, DTE officials say its future fuel mix is unclear until it completes and files its own integrated resource plan, or IRP, by March 29 of next year.

So far, planning documents filed with the state show DTE will add 4,000 megawatts of renewable energy, four times what it currently produces, to increase renewables to 25 percent of generation from 10 percent now.

However, energy experts tell Crain’s they believe DTE could eventually ramp up renewable energy to 40 percent or more of fuel mix, especially if the cost of wind and solar installations continues to drop.

DTE also currently generates 21 percent of its electricity from nuclear power, which Consumers plans to cut to zero by 2030 from 19 percent this year.

Because of increasing renewable and natural gas, the percentage of DTE’s nuclear generation at Fermi 2 in Monroe County is expected to drop to about 10 percent by 2040.

There is an outside chance nuclear could increase. While the company currently has no firm plans to expand it, DTE also in 2015 received a license to build Fermi 3, a 1,560-megawatt plant that would likely cost more than $10 billion. DTE officials have described the Fermi 3 license as a type of “insurance card,” and a decision could be made in the 2020s.

Future energy choices? Depends

Consumer Energy’s IRP lays out its current thinking of how it plans to provide electricity to its 1.8 million Michigan customers. But CEO Patti Poppe told Crain’s those plans could change in the next three to five years when it files its next IRP as renewable energy technology changes or if state policies wind up requiring more in-state generation.

DTE is working on its IRP and expects to hold meetings this summer and into next spring to gather feedback for its five-year energy plan to supply 2.2 million customers, said Irene Dimitry, DTE’s vice president of business planning and development.

“We have asked for input from people who intervened in the (certificate of necessity) to see what they would like, and we will run the scenarios and modeling requested of us,” Dimitry said.

So, in 2040, when both DTE and Consumers are saying they will end the use of coal to power plants, what will be their energy mix?

Both companies say their plans will likely change based on market conditions, but here’s what can be divined from the companies’ public filings and statements.

Consumers’ choices

Consumers Energy has a carefully laid-out energy and fuel mix plan over the next 22 years. Its integrated resource plan calls for it to generate 37 percent renewable energy by 2030 and 43 percent renewable energy by 2040, when it will cut carbon emissions by 80 percent.

Coal makes up 32 percent of Consumers’ supply today. The company plans to eliminate its coal as a power source by 2040 and also end power purchase agreements for nuclear and natural gas capacity. By 2030, coal would be down to 28 percent of generation and zero by 2040.

Poppe said it is easier for Consumers to eliminate coal because “of basic math. We are closer to the finish line. That is indisputable. We have less to close.” Consumers has five remaining coal-fired units to close in Bay City, Karn, Holland and Campbell from 2021 to 2040.

Natural gas in Consumers’ portfolio would increase slightly from 12 percent in 2018 to 18 percent in 2030 and then down to 10 percent in 2040.

So, in 2040, renewable energy could account for 43 percent of electricity power, 10 percent natural gas, 6 percent from hydroelectric pump storage and battery sources and the remaining 41 percent of Consumers’ portfolio will come from regional market purchases, its IRP says.

Consumers is ahead of DTE in its attitude concerning renewable energy. Poppe said. Consumers believes solar and wind are better investments for the company and shareholders than a large natural gas plant, so the company plans on massive expansion with the cleanest of energy sources.

Consumers’ two gas plants and the hydro pumped storage facility provide enough baseload power to justify adding more renewables, especially when energy efficiency and demand response programs become a greater part of the company’s strategy, she said.

Poppe also said advanced battery storage technologies coupled with renewable energy could eventually be just as dependable as baseload gas plants. She also said the 6 percent projected during the next 20 years from the hydro pumped storage and battery sources could be much, much higher. Experts said 10 percent is not an unreasonable goal.

“We expect to add more storage, most likely there will be batteries,” Poppe said. “The technology is improving and storage with batteries makes renewables more effective.”

While utility executives have argued in the past that their energy portfolio mix must include traditional, dependable power sources such as coal, natural gas or nuclear, Poppe said storage will turn renewables into such “baseload” power sources.

Consumers also is projecting a need to purchase about 41 percent of its future electricity generation through regional market purchases through the Midcontinent Independent Service Operator. Consumers doesn’t purchase wholesale electricity now through MISO because it has excess generation within its system, Poppe said.

“We are also saying that by 2040 that could change. There could be more constraints” imposed by the MPSC, or other changes. “The commission could instruct us how much local resources are required” to be generated in Michigan.

“If so, we would change our plan,” she said. “Right now there is not a lot of excess private generation” in Michigan.

Moreover, Poppe said Consumers is counting heavily, and at least now more so than DTE, on energy efficiency programs and demand response programs.

Consumers has announced an aggressive plan to encourage saving electricity by increasing energy efficiency to 2.25 percent of annual electricity sales, up from the state-mandated 1 percent. This saves customers money but also Consumers because it won’t have to add costly electricity capacity.

Coupled with other moves, Consumers hopes to bank what it calls “virtual power plants” to reduce energy demand by 22 percent by 2040, a far more ambitious goal than DTE’s current plans.

Most people think of demand response as utilities asking large industrial customers to limit power on hot days when demand for electricity is high. Customers are given discounts for participating and pay fees if they want to skip the request to power down.

In June during a four-hour period, said Poppe, “We tested 22 megawatts (demand response), and it did exactly what it was asked to do. If you are on a hot day, it is hard to trust and manage people load. We think the technology today allows us to do that.”

Poppe said Tendril Inc.’s Orchestrated Energy, a home automation software program, could enable forward-thinking utilities in the future to work with residential customers on demand response programs that won’t interrupt lifestyles or businesses as much as in the past.

The Tendril system can calculate a home’s thermal mass, predict the residents’ behavior and work with connected devices at the home to manage electricity use. Peak load for air conditioning, one of the largest users of power, can be cut by up to 50 percent and overall electricity use by 20 percent.

“Tendril believes you can pre-cool the house by using Wi-Fi thermostats and data analytics to reduce residential energy use, where the big numbers are,” Poppe said. “It makes us more bullish on demand response.” Consumers doesn’t have a contract with Tendril and she declined to say if one might be in the works.

But when all scenarios are combined, energy experts say it is possible by 2040 Consumers could have an energy mix of 43 percent or more renewable energy, 10 percent natural gas, 6 percent hydroelectric pump and battery storage. In addition, 19 percent could come from regional market purchases or increased renewable investment and 22 percent coming from efficiency and demand response energy reductions.

DTE’s energy choices

Over the next eight months before it files its IRP, DTE must make several critical choices.

Will it increase renewable energy generation above the 25 percent goal it has in its current energy plan? Will it ramp up energy efficiency and demand response strategies as Consumers has? Will it open a second natural gas plant in 2029, as it has suggested in commission filings?

DTE now says it will add 1,000 megawatts of renewable, mostly wind, by 2023 and 3,000 more megawatts more by 2040. DTE currently has 1,004 megawatts of renewable power, including 909 MW of wind, 71 MW of solar and 23 MW of landfill gas and biomass. Those numbers are steadily growing.

But the majority of DTE’s renewable generation is scheduled to be added after 2030. It could speed up investment, experts say, because prices are at historic lows now and tax credits remain available.

“We have a long-term process in mind. The earlier years are clearer. Time will tell exactly how it will happen,” Dimitry said. “We will end coal by 2040 and by 2030, 50 percent will be clean energy, half will be renewables.”

DTE considers clean energy to include renewable sources and energy waste reduction and exclude fossil fuel and nuclear, Dimitry said.

Experts believe DTE will build the second gas plant if for no other reason than the company has invested heavily in natural gas pipelines running hundreds of miles from Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Ontario. If it is built, it most likely will be in Monroe County, where the company plans to shutter its massive coal-fired plant in 2040.

Environmental and renewable energy advocates say it makes most sense economically and for the sake of saving land, air and sea from pollution and people from lung and heart health problems to invest more heavily in such clean energy sources as solar, wind, biomass and hydroelectric power.

But DTE isn’t convinced and is expected by energy experts to spend more on natural gas than renewable energy to build out its energy portfolio.

Still, according to filings with the MPSC on building its natural gas plant in East China Township in St. Clair County, DTE has advanced various scenarios on what its future fuel mix will be.

A recent DTE workshop document with energy stakeholders shows that by 2030 the company could have a fuel generation mix of 25 percent renewable power, 19 percent natural gas, 19 percent nuclear, 30 percent coal and 8 percent an undetermined coal replacement power source.

Dimitry told Crain’s DTE only intended the data in the workshop document to be viewed as interim possibilities for discussion. She said plans are bound to change over the next few months.

Monroe, Belle River coal plant replacement dilemma

But even by more than doubling renewables by 2030 to 25 percent, DTE will still have to replace 38 percent of its coal-fired power, from the Monroe and Belle River plants.

Dimitry said DTE doesn’t yet know how it will replace 30 percent of electricity generation from the Monroe power plant, which is scheduled to close in 2040. DTE also isn’t yet positive how it will replace the 8 percent generated at the Belle River plant, which will close by 2030, she said.

The other three active DTE coal plants are in River Rouge, St. Clair and Trenton, which will all be closed between 2020 and 2023. Those plants will be replaced by the new gas plant in St. Clair County.

DTE has suggested three options for replacing coal in company documents, case filings to the MPSC and in interviews with Crain’s.

The first, most direct possibility is by building the second natural gas plant, said Dimitry. That could cost $1 billion and generate about 900 megawatts.

“It’s not an apple-for-apple swap,” Dimitry said. “You have to factor in technologies, energy waste reduction and capacity needs.”

But if DTE goes with this second gas-plant option, experts believe DTE also can increase its demand response program, ramp up energy efficiencies and grid improvements and use the combination to partially replace the Monroe and Belle River plants.

Dimitry said IRP process will help DTE decide how to replace Belle River and possibly Monroe.

In company documents, DTE says it expects to go beyond the mandated levels of energy efficiency reductions that will slow demand. Documents show ranges of 1.5 percent to 2.5 percent, up from 1 percent of electricity sales now. DTE’s current plan is to generate 1.5 percent electric efficiency savings through 2019.

“Part of the IRP will take a look at additional levels of energy efficiency, to see if makes sense and what scenarios we would need to go up to 2.5 percent,” Dimitry said.

Energy experts say DTE could easily go to 2 percent energy efficiency in the next few years now that Consumers has committed to hitting 2.25 percent.

Another option in the future to replace some of the 38 percent coal-fired capacity is through what are known as “peaker” power sources driven by renewable energy coupled with battery and hydroelectric pump storage, Dimitry said.

Over the next decade, DTE could increase its hydroelectric pump storage electricity generation as it is a co-owner with Consumers of the Ludington pump storage plant, Dimitry said. Currently, DTE generates about 3 percent of electricity at Ludington, but that amount could be increased to about 6 percent or more, she said. Experts estimate it could go to 10 percent.

Traditionally, peaker power plants have been coal, oil or gas-fired turbines that run only when there is high demand for electricity.

In the future, peaker power sources will most likely come more economically from renewable energy, including wind and solar, with electricity stored in newly developed, longer-life battery systems, experts said.

Another DTE document shows that by 2040 additional electric capacity could come from 30 percent peaker power and hydroelectric pumped storage sources, 25 percent renewable, 20 percent gas and 10 percent nuclear. This scenario leaves 15 percent still undetermined.

As a result, several energy sources told Crain’s they believe DTE will ultimately decide to up its renewable portfolio to a minimum of 40 percent, as Consumers already has pledged, and DTE has suggested in documents.

But Dimitry said people reviewing DTE documents may have “misinterpreted” the company’s intentions with when it presented 40 percent renewable-energy targets.

She acknowledged DTE has suggested going 40 percent renewable early in the IRP process when it filed documents last year to support its St. Clair natural gas plant.

“That (40 percent renewable number) was filed in 2017, and a lot of modeling for that was done in 2016,” Dimitry said. “For modeling purposes, you have to make assumptions to replace coal plants” that DTE promised and to achieve 80 percent carbon reduction goals.

Dimitry acknowledged that the DTE “didn’t put a lot of focus in the filing (for the St. Clair gas plant). We just wanted approval for the natural gas plant. We were focusing on the 2022 time frame. We had to have a placeholder for the 2030 time frame.”

But when all scenarios are combined, energy experts say it is possible by 2040 that DTE could wind up with 40 percent or more renewable energy, 30 percent natural gas with two gas plants, 10 percent nuclear and 10 to 20 percent from pumped storage, demand response and energy efficiency programs.

DTE also could purchase 10 percent capacity from the regional electricity market or increase pumped storage and energy waste reducing programs, experts say.

The one wild card out of the hands of utility planning and energy generation pricing is the extent to which residential and industrial customers invest in community solar and wind farms. Customers generating their own electricity, selling excess power back to utilities could be substantial in the future, which could threaten the utilities’ business.

Quartz reports that Pellion Technologies — a battery startup located in Massachusetts — has developed a lithium metal battery that has double the power and half the weight of a conventional lithium ion battery. Yes, we know. Battery breakthrough news tends to be all the same — long on promises, short on actual results. The difference with the Pellion story is the company is already selling its batteries to commercial customers.

Now, it’s true. The first customers are specialized users who value the new battery’s increased range potential to keep their commercial drones aloft longer and are willing to pay a substantial premium over traditional batteries to get it. The new batteries have a relatively short useful life. After 50 charge/discharge cycles, they are pretty much toast. But Pellion expects millions of dollars in revenue from sales of its new battery this year — money that can be put to good use learning how to increase the useful life of the batteries and bring down the cost of manufacturing them.

Pellion was founded in 2011 by Robert Doe, a postdoctoral student at MIT, and one of his professors, Gerd Ceder. Their goal was to develop a magnesium battery. Magnesium has two positive ions it can contribute to energy storage versus only one for lithium. Double the available ions means double the energy storage power.

The duo labored away in the lab trying to perfect their magnesium battery until 2013, when Dave Eaglesham joined the company as CEO. He had previously headed First Solar, one of the only solar power companies to survive the tumultuous early years in which many solar startups blossomed then faded into obscurity. Eaglesham had his doubts about the commercial viability of a magnesium battery but noticed right away that Doe and Ceder had achieved a breakthrough in anode technology as part of their research.

Most lithium ion batteries use anodes made from graphite. Lithium is highly reactive with most of the elements found in the Earth’s atmosphere — oxygen, hydrogen, and nitrogen. That reactivity can lead to the batteries catching fire once exposed to the air. Graphite serves to isolate the lithium from the environment but it has a problem. It takes six graphite atoms to store one atom of lithium. What if it were possible to make the anode out of lithium metal instead? And how to protect it from exposure to the atmosphere?

That’s exactly what Doe and Ceder figured out how to do. According to Quartz, “Pellion’s battery doesn’t start with lithium metal inside. Instead, the battery is manufactured in the exact same way as a conventional lithium-ion battery, including using a liquid electrolyte, a widely available cathode, and an anode that begins its life as a copper sheet. That’s crucial because it allows Pellion to use existing lithium-ion battery factories in Asia, where it’s much cheaper to manufacture batteries.

“In its discharged state, the Pellion battery has its lithium ions sitting snugly inside the cathode. The magic happens when the battery is charged for the first time and the lithium ions travel from the cathode and deposit as a layer of lithium metal on the copper anode. The first charge is carried out in a state when the battery is completely sealed from the outside environment, and thus the newly formed layer of lithium metal is protected. This configuration is called “zero-lithium” or “lithium-free.”

An independent battery expert, who asked Quartz not to identify him due to press restrictions at his lab, called what Pelllion has done the “holy grail” of the lithium metal battery. Paul Albertus, a program director at ARPA-E, published a study earlier this year in which the increased energy density of the the lithium metal battery compared to a traditional lithium ion battery is shown graphically.

“Battery startups struggle to find customers for their early products,” Venkat Srinivasan, a lead battery researcher at Argonne National Laboratory, tells Quartz. “So it’s an achievement that Pellion is already shipping product.” Quartz reached out to 10 other startups working on lithium-metal batteries for comment and got replies from six. Sion Power, PolyPlus, Solid Energy Systems, and Ion Storage Systems said they are in the validation phase of their advanced battery products and have begun sending engineering prototypes to potential customers and third-party testers. QuantumScape and Blue Current declined to comment. QuantumScape is the reclusive battery company that Volkswagen made a $100 million investment in this past June.

It’s too early to start talking about lithium metal batteries for electric cars or energy storage. There are too many hurdles to clear first. But the promise of greatly increased energy density is too great to ignore. The battery cells Tesla uses have an energy density of 600 watt-hours per liter and 200 watt-hours per kilogram. The figures for the Pellion lithium metal battery are nearly double — 1,000 watt-hours per liter and 400 watt-hours per kilogram.

“Commercializing batteries is an extremely hard problem. Most startups end up in bullshit land,” Ceder says. “They are run by CEOs who are all about raising money and ratcheting up the stakes…before the crash. Pellion is different.” Dave Eaglesham is the difference, he believes, because Eaglesham has experience both as an engineer and as a businessman.

In an e-mail to CleanTechnica, Akshat Rathi, the author of the Quartz story, says “[The] 100% increase in energy density is step change compared to the annual 10% or so improvement the battery industry currently averages. If Pellion overcomes early limitations, its batteries could power a Tesla car for 800 km (500 miles) on a single charge, rather than today’s upper limits of 400 km.” So far, the only independent academic who has seen Pellion’s technology in action declined a request for comment. Eaglesham says the company’s customers have validated its technology, but he declined to put Quartz in touch with them, citing confidentiality agreements.

How long before such batteries find their way into production vehicles? Would 5 years be too much to hope for? Basic research doesn’t care much about deadlines. The breakthroughs come when they come, although throwing money at a problem always helps move things along.

Dave Eaglesham says Pellion has received “tens of millions of dollars” from investors looking to get in on the ground floor of the next storage battery breakthrough. QuantumScape has $100 million from VW. Sion Power, PolyPlus, Solid Energy Systems, and Ion Storage Systems all have financial backers. Someday, we are going to wake up to find the lithium metal battery is a reality and the electric car and energy storage revolutions will take another giant step forward.

Asia-Pacific battery market is expected to grow significantly in the coming decade as a result of increased electrification activities in the region. Countries like Japan, China, and South Korea are leading the market in the region and countries such as India and Australia have shown tremendous growth in the past few years. Global battery market is expanding. The growth is coming from both automotive and industrial sectors powered by usage in telecom, railways, power and other industrial applications.

Primarily, batteries are divided into two categories – primary and secondary. Primary batteries are used once, and then discarded. They have the advantage of convenience and less cost per battery, with the downside of costing more over the long term. Generally, primary batteries have a higher capacity and initial voltage than rechargeable batteries, and a sloping discharge curve. Most primary batteries do not presently require special disposal.

Secondary batteries are the rechargeable batteries. They have the advantage of being more cost-efficient over the long term, although individual batteries are more expensive. Generally, secondary batteries have a lower capacity and initial voltage, a flat discharge curve, higher self-discharge rates and varying recharge life ratings. Secondary batteries usually have more active (less stable) chemistries which need special handling, containment and disposal. Ni-Cd and small-size Lead Acid batteries require special disposal and should not be simply thrown away.

In February 2018, experts at Advanced Automotive Battery Conference in Germany indicated that Lead batteries will remain the dominant battery technology on the world’s roads for the foreseeable future.

The growth in passenger car, commercial vehicle and motorcycle industry, along with growing application of energy storage, is expected to drive industry demand for batteries. Increasing requirement of UPS in industrial sectors including oil & gas, manufacturing, chemical, and healthcare has further spurred batteries demand.

It is also true that Lead Acid batteries have over 150 years of existence. Invented by the French physician Gaston Planté in 1859, Lead Acid was the first rechargeable battery for commercial use. Despite its advanced age, the Lead chemistry continues to be in wide use today. There are good reasons for its popularity; Lead Acid is dependable and inexpensive on a cost-per-watt base. There are few other batteries that deliver bulk power as cheaply as Lead Acid, and this makes the battery cost-effective for automobiles, golf cars, forklifts, marine and uninterruptible power supplies (UPS).

The global Lead Acid battery market size was valued at USD 46.6 billion in 2015 and is expected to reach USD 84.46 billion by 2025, according to a new report by Grand View Research, Inc. Expansion of the automotive industry in China, India, Brazil, Mexico, South Africa, Indonesia, and Germany is anticipated to drive industry growth. Furthermore, increasing utilization of energy storage systems and UPS in industries including mining, oil & gas, nuclear power, electricity generation, gas turbine, construction, hospitality, banking, manufacturing, and off-grid renewable is anticipated to drive Lead Acid battery demand over the forecast period.

Transparency Market Research projects the global UPS market to rise at a CAGR of 7.5% between 2017 and 2025. India’s UPS market has been forecast to grow at a CAGR of more than 9% by 2023.

The grid structure of the Lead Acid battery is made from a Lead alloy. Pure Lead is too soft and would not support itself, so small quantities of other metals are added to get the mechanical strength and improve electrical properties. The most common additives are Antimony, Calcium, Tin and Selenium. These batteries are often known as “Lead-Antimony” and “Lead Calcium.”

But with that, there are certain drawbacks as well. Lead Acid based batteries have low specific energy, poor weight-to-energy ratio, slow charge, fully saturated charge takes 14-16 hours, must be stored in charged condition to prevent sulfation, limited cycle life; repeated deep-cycling reduces battery life, flooded version requires watering, transportation restrictions on the flooded type and not environmentally friendly.

There has been a debate on whether the Zinc batteries will overtake Lead batteries in the automobile sector. Many researches are being conducted throughout the world and there seems to be a sharp analysis of pros and cons.

Advocates of Zinc based Batteries

A Canadian commodity research firm has said that older Zinc battery technology could be a more efficient grid-scale energy storage solution than the much-hyped Lithium equivalent, possibly boosting demand for a metal.

What is not normally considered by investors is the possibility that a boring base metal might become an exciting technology metal. It is believed that this is precisely what may happen in the next few years to Zinc, as various firms bring their inexpensive Zinc-air stationary batteries to the market as a cost-effective grid-storage technology.

Zinc-air batteries can become a serious player in the grid-storage market and then technology investors will also have to begin to look at Zinc in the same way that they have begun to look at Lithium and Cobalt.

In the last few years, several Zinc battery companies have made strides in overcoming problems with their electrically-rechargeable Zinc-air batteries that make them not only viable entrants in this space, but, arguably, the best such storage devices, outpacing flow batteries and all other technology.

Stormcrow’s report says, “The Zinc metal demand from 4,404 GWh of Zinc-air battery storage would be roughly 19.8 million of metal. This amount of metal represents roughly 1.5-times the annual production of Zinc metal in the world. We should bear in mind that these batteries will be deployed over time, smoothing out demand. Even so, we could see as much as 3-6% annual impacts in demand in the future.”

“Right now is the time to grab the market and take this global approach,” Craig Wilkins, founder and Vice President of business development at ZAF Energy Systems Inc., told the audience at the International Zinc Association conference.

Craig Wilkins also believes that Zinc is in prime position to capture the battery market because the Lead Acid market is “stressed”. Lead Acid batteries have been around for nearly 150 years “with no significant improvements to the technology.”

New battery chemistries that include Zinc are ready for large-scale deployment in the energy storage industry, as the materials now meet the necessary criteria to achieve widespread adoption.

The two ZAF-developed battery chemistries that include Zinc are Nickel-Zinc batteries, for motive and stationary storage applications; and Zinc-air batteries, for logistics, consumer electronics, military and motive applications.

Craig Wilkins in the conference also spoke that Zinc batteries have the potential to open a large market for the metal, since they now meet the five critical factors needed for widespread adoption. First and foremost is cost.

The chemistries and materials in construction must be inexpensive and meet the cost/benefit threshold of targeted markets. Indeed, the cost of Zinc per trillion watt-hours (Wh) is $1.5 billion, far below the cost of competing materials. The cost of Lead per trillion Wh is $4.3 billion, Vanadium $61.9 billion, Nickel $9 billion and Lithium $6.3 billion, Wilkins said.

Another leading factor is safety—the chemistries must be safe and free from toxic materials. If Zinc batteries gain acceptance, they’ll be placed in homes, schools and businesses, among other locations, where safety is a chief concern.

“Safety becomes more important as it comes close to populations,” he said.

The public perception of Lead is shifting to a more negative outlook, lending credence to the adoption of Zinc as a safer alternative. The public perception is going against Lead, and public policy is starting to go in that direction. With the exception of Copper, Zinc’s competitors in the market aren’t available in great supply. The world is laden with Zinc and Copper, but it won’t be cheaper to build batteries out of Copper.

Approximately 230 million tonnes of Zinc are available globally in commercial reserves, with 14 million tonnes available in the United States alone.

Meanwhile, global commercial reserves for Lead total 79 million tonnes, Nickel 71 million tonnes, Vanadium 13 million tonnes and Lithium 10.1 million tonnes. The cells, manufacturing and chemistry of the material must also be scalable.

“If you are going to go big, you have to look at the scale of the chemistry and the ability to turn it into large applications. Finally, the product’s chemistry and its system must cater to a variety of services in order to impart the maximum economic benefit. It has to service different markets. We tend to see a performance gap in existing technologies to meet energy storage needs” Craig Wilkins added.

Recycling of Lead Batteries – the Game Changer

Battery recycling is the process of recycling used batteries from various sources, preventing them from going into municipal wastes and landfills for disposal. Almost all household batteries, battery packs from mobile phones, power tools, laptops & remote control units, and car batteries can be recycled. Batteries comprise several toxic and hazardous metals and heavy metals such as Lead, Mercury, Nickel, and Cadmium. These can contaminate soil or underground and surface water resources if they go into landfills. Battery recycling prevents the degradation of environment and potential health hazards caused from disposed batteries.

The global battery recycling market was valued at USD 8.10 billion in 2016 and is projected to reach USD 11.83 billion by 2022, at a CAGR of 6.5% from 2017 to 2022. The market is expected to witness growth in the coming years, owing to the large number of batteries in-use and stringent environmental regulations by the local and national governments in the battery recycling market.

Lead Acid battery chemistry is expected to be the fastest-growing chemistry segment of the global battery recycling market.

Lead is a highly recycled material. It can be recycled infinite number of times.

Lead Acid batteries are among the world’s most recycled product and account for over 80.0% of the worldwide Lead usage with high recycling rate across the globe.

Lead batteries have achieved around 99% of recycling rate in North America and more than 90% recycling rate across the globe. The extracted Lead from battery recycling process is reused as a raw material in the manufacture of batteries or other products. Secondary Lead production i.e. recycled Lead production, is the major source of Lead metal production across the globe. Furthermore, usage of secondary Lead prevents the exposure of the hazardous metal into the environment.

The global battery recycling market analyst says one trend in market is subsidies to encourage battery recycling. Lithium-ion batteries are gaining momentum in the global battery market. The gap between standard Lead Acid batteries (the oldest battery technology in the battery market) and Lithium-ion batteries is drastically reducing. This is owing to numerous features and benefits that Lithium-ion batteries provide over standard Lead Acid batteries. However, the concern that arises with the extensive use of Lithium-ion batteries is the availability of Lithium metal worldwide.

According to the battery recycling market report, one driver in market is widening Lithium supply-demand gap. Although there is an adequate amount of Lithium resources available globally to cater to the demand, almost 70% of the global Lithium reserves are concentrated in South America’s ABC (Argentina, Bolivia, and Chile) region. Owing to the sparse accessibility of the raw material (available only in geography) there is an integral risk. Some challenges are likely to influence the Lithium supply in the future.

The companies are the key players in the global battery recycling market: Call2Recycle, Exide Technologies, Gravita India, and Johnson Controls. Other prominent vendors in the market are: East Penn Manufacturing, ENERSYS, Umicore, Retriev Technologies, G & P Batteries, The Doe Run Company, Gopher Resource, RSR Corporation, Terrapure Environmental, COM2 Recycling Solutions, World Logistics, Aqua Metals, Raw Materials Company, Engitec Technologies, and Vinton Batteries.

The Future of Batteries in Electric Vehicles

Electric bikes are expected to witness growth at a CAGR of 6% from 2016 to 2025 owing to zero carbon emission and low-cost mobility. Increasing prices of gasoline and diesel fuels are expected to attract more consumers towards using these environment-friendly e-bikes. Furthermore, rising population and traffic congestion are expected to fuel the demand for e-bikes, which, in turn, is likely to boost industry growth over the upcoming years.

The proliferation of electric vehicles and renewable energy sources is driving demand for rechargeable batteries that store and deliver large amounts of energy safely, efficiently and inexpensively. Zinc-based batteries offer some key advantages over Lithium-ion, including low-cost and non-flammability. Kilo per kilo, Zinc-air batteries can potentially store five times more energy than Lithium-ion, while Zinc-Nickel batteries produce relatively high voltages (potentially useful because fewer batteries would be needed to power a device). Yet, Zinc batteries also tend to lose their energy storage capacity after just a few hundred recharging cycles, and no Zinc battery has yet combined both a decent voltage of more than 1.5 volts and a high energy storage capacity.

Electric vehicle and advanced battery market experts dismissed the bullish predictions of several global auto OEMs who claim that pure electric vehicle market penetration will hit 20% by 2025.

The mild hybrid market is largely expected to dominate in Europe and outside of China, there is no path to a full electric vehicle market of any size according to experts of electrified vehicles gathered in Germany last week.

This has direct consequences on the battery technologies used. “Developments in electric vehicle technology are moving quickly but improvements in Lead battery technology speeded up faster than anyone could have expected”, according to Dr. Boris Monahov, of ALABC (Advanced Lead Acid Battery Consortium), the precompetitive research organization representing the Lead battery industry. Speaking at the Advanced Automotive Battery Conference in Mainz Germany, he said, “If the EV market even reaches 25% that means the key energy storage system used to electrify cars in 2025 will be the advanced Lead battery technology”.

The Lead battery industry has moved quickly to meet automotive manufacturers’ requirements for the huge micro-hybrid and start-stop segments of the electrified vehicle market. The main criteria for choosing an advanced Lead battery remains its unique combination of cost, safety, reliability, excellent performance and high recyclability advantages, compared to newer battery technologies.

Globally, the automotive market is on course to cross the 100 million units’ threshold in 2019. India, now the world’s 4th largest automobile market, has outpaced Germany with 9.5% growth in sales. Germany sold 3.8 million units and has grown by a modest 2.8 percent last year. According to IHS Markit, India is likely to continue to expand its automotive market by nearly 10 percent a year and will overtake Japan by 2020 which stands at third-place as of now.

All the global producers of metals – Zinc-Lead-Lithium and of Sulphuric Acid, will have an important role to play in the near future.

In India, Hindustan Zinc is the largest producer of Zinc as well as Lead and Sulphuric Acid, and India is one of the most dynamic market for automobile industry and for immense scope in technology. Perhaps India will lead the next phase of batteries market in the world.

The final question remains – Will Lead Retain its Sheen in Batteries? Probably Yes. Whenever the question of dependability and inexpensive batteries will be raised, including the cost-per-watt base, Lead batteries will stand out as the first preference. There would definitely be an advantage to Zinc based batteries in home-office sector, being more environment friendly. Ultimately, market will drive the demand, and the market of automobiles, UPS and electrification storage is set to grow mammoth across the world.

The Mercedes-Benz EQC all-electric SUV is going to be the German automaker’s first all-electric vehicle built to be electric from the ground up. It will also be one of several electric luxury SUVs coming to market in the next year.

Now the Mercedes-Benz EQC has been spied with less camouflage ahead of its production unveiling in just a few weeks.

Based on the concept vehicle, Mercedes-Benz previously said that the EQC is equipped with a 70 kWh battery pack for a range of ‘up to 500 kilometers’ (310 miles). At the time, it was based on the NEDC standard and the real-world range or EPA-rated range would be expected to be significantly less – around 250 miles. The range should be competitive with the several other all-electric luxury SUVs coming to market in the next few years.

As for power, Mercedes says that the EQC is equipped with two electric motors on the front and rear axles for a total power output of up to 300 kW. The automaker claims that it will be able to accelerate from 0 to 100 km/h (0 to 62 mph) in under five seconds.

We have seen the concept of the EQC on which the production version will be based and we have seen the camouflaged production version.

Unsurprisingly, it looks a lot more conventional than the concept unveiled two years ago in terms of the shape.

It appears that Mercedes-Benz is going to keep a grille on the front fascia for the EQC. Even though all-electric vehicles generally don’t really need air intake there, it looks like the German automaker is using a very large grille extending all the way to the headlights.

The headlights themselves remain very camouflaged on this test vehicle.

As for the wheels, they are mostly covered and similar to the ones unveiled in the concept version. It should help with the aero performance and efficiency, which ultimately affects the range of the vehicle.

The vehicle is expected to be fully unveiled and launched at an event in Sweden in just a few weeks.