Recent NY-BEST™ News and Notes

GE clears air quality hurdle for new battery plant in Schenectady. Documents filed with DEC say that the Schenectady factory is expected to make 1 million batteries a year at first, but that production will increase to 10 million batteries a year by 2015.

Ice Energy supporting new bill (Storage act of 2010) that covers many areas of energy storage

$3 million project with CUNY to implement grid scale storage

The GE WattStation will be sold in 2011 and a home version will be introduced later this year. The equipment can reduce the time it takes to charge an electric vehicle battery from 12 to 18 hours to around four to eight hours, according to GE.

Three New York based projects have been selected by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to receive $5.5 million for research projects that aim to dramatically improve how the U.S. uses and produces energy.

CUNY’s Energy Institute received two awards totaling $4.6 million. The first project will develop metacapacitors with increased storage capability for grid interfaces, working in partnership with NY-BEST member Columbia University. The second project is in partnership with Ultralife Corporation, also a consortium member, and will develop low-cost grid-scale storage using a flow-...

Kodak is donating to Rochester Institute of Technology's Golisano Institute for Sustainability to help support research efforts and, eventually, a laboratory to allow collaborative work between Kodak and RIT on sustainability projects.

The research team, from Stony Brook University, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization in Victoria, Australia, and University of Cambridge in the UK, is using NMR spectroscopy to measure the amount of dendrites formed, for the first time, as they cannot be quantified using a scanning electron microscope.

NY representatives visit west cost to promote NYS offerings

Video: Obama speaks at new Michigan battery plant

If you have not yet participated in the EPRI & TTC project to develop functional requirements for key energy storage applications, there is still time. Please note the revised schedule for the upcoming application webinars.

Tiny copper spheres and carbon nanotubes cool hot electronics found in high power devices. The new type of cooling system can be used to prevent overheating of insulated gate bipolar transistors, high-power switching transistors used in hybrid and electric vehicles.

Fisker purchases Delaware Automotive plant to start vehicle production in 2013. Like the Chevy Volt, these would run on plug-in battery power for roughly the first 50 miles and then recharge the batteries through an on-board internal combustion engine.

The Company will ship an estimated 287,000 batteries during the first two years of the agreement.

The DOE expects battery costs per kWh to drop from about $1,000 in 2009 to $300 in 2015 and $100 in 2030. For example, the battery LG Chem is supplying for the upcoming Chevrolet Volt cost $13,000 last year but is expected to drop to $4,000 by 2015, the report said. White House economists estimate that the U.S. accounted for 2% of global production of batteries for electric cars and hybrids in 2009. That share, however, is expected to rise to 40% of global production by 2015, according to Reuters.

Tesla Motors will produce electric Rav4 crossover SUVs for Toyota Motor Co. beginning in 2012, the two companies announced Friday.

As it moves closer to launching its Focus Electric model, Ford has selected Compact Power as the supplier of its lithium-ion battery packs for the vehicle. The company, which is also supplying battery packs for the Chevy Volt, will use its expertise in advanced prismatic lithium-ion cells and advanced liquid-cooled modules and battery management systems to boost the vehicle which is scheduled for launch in 2011.

Eaton Corporation has selected Compact Power Inc. (CPI), a wholly-owned US subsidiary of LG Chem, to provide batteries for certain future Eaton hybrid electric drive systems.

Improvements in version 2 of the ZESS POWR™ zinc bromide battery system include advanced materials for better internal flow, new external sealing material for secondary leak protection of the electrolyte, improved pumping components for greater reliability and lower auxiliary power requirements.

Battery will help regulate power from 12 wind turbines. The battery system will come from Xtreme Power and will help regulate power from 12 "Liberty" wind turbines, each rated to produce 2.5MW of power.

S. Korea to invest $12.4B over 10 years to become dominant in rechargeable Li-ion batteries. Korea is on a par with Japan for electric car batteries, but in terms of energy storage batteries, the country is still behind in research and development and capital investment according to their Ministry.

President Barack Obama will make his fourth visit to Michigan since taking office, to take part in the groundbreaking of a $303 million battery plant.

This workshop will examine end-use applications and market drivers for large-scale storage, the R&D efforts that are pushing the boundaries, and highlight near-deployment technologies.

SHANGHAI - A battery manufacturer is being blamed for the lead poisoning of four children aged one to six in Gao'er village, Jiangsu province.

Washington State University chemists have used super-high pressures similar to those found deep in the Earth to create a compact, new material that potentially could store vast amounts of energy. As researchers increased the pressure inside the chamber, the material became a two-dimensional graphite-like semiconductor. In the process, the huge amount of mechanical energy of compression was stored as chemical energy in the molecules' bonds.

Japanese electronics maker Toshiba Corp. now in a deal with Mitsubishi to develop EV batteries. Production will start sometime next year in a new facility in northern Japan. The plant's production capacity is expected to grow to one million cells a month by March 2012. Batteries may also be used for smart grid storage.

InstaLoad is a patented battery contact design that Microsoft has made available for licence by third party device suppliers. InstaLoad works by using battery contacts designed to operate from both ends - thereby dismissing the need to worry about the plus and negative polarity on the power cell.

IPO raises needed funds in first initial public offering by a U.S. automaker in more than 50 years.

Tesla Shares make off to a good start, shows market acceptance

UL working with Electric Drive group to accelerate technology and maintain safety standards

An opinion article on competitiveness of battery technology against traditional fuels