Energy Storage

As the contagion continues to spread, its impact is beginning to be felt on the solar industry outside China with the cancellation or postponement of major trade shows and conferences that were set to take place over the next few weeks.

The OneBox, from Indian manufacturer Vision Mechatronics, consists of a lithium battery, hybrid inverter and solar charge controller to give a hassle-free solution for electricity back-up during power outages. Solar rooftop owners are offered a grid feed feature to maximize net metering income from any excess power generated.

As the sector continues to grow rapidly, delays in manufacturing scale-ups, difficulties sourcing raw materials and a separate path taken by the electric vehicle sector could all chuck ‘sand in the gears’, according to analyst Wood Mackenzie.

The Solar Energy Corporation of India should amend the 400 MW round-the-clock supply tender to make co-location of solar, wind and storage mandatory in order to ensure optimal utilization of transmission infrastructure, says NSEFI chairman.

By offering 410 KWh of cumulative battery capacity for a total cost of Rs2.51 crore, the state-owned engineer and manufacturer emerged winner in the auction which saw overwhelming response from both Lithium-ion and advanced lead-acid storage providers.

Consultancy Bridge to India has looked into its crystal ball to predict India will add 10 GW of solar capacity this year and the same next year before deployment slows to 7 GW per year in 2022 and 2023, dogged by hurdles such as an inexplicable ongoing demand for new coal-fired power plants.

By engineering the structure of a hard carbon electrode, scientists at the CIC energIGUNE research center have created an ‘ultrafast battery’ which has been shown to combine the energy density of a lithium device with the fast discharge times normally associated with supercapacitors.

Having bagged 2.250 MW capacity in January, the Gujarat-based power generator has won four more solar projects—900 KW for JPB Fibers, 675 KW for N.J. Textile Industries, 135 KW for N.J. Texturisers and 950 KW for Sailaxmi Tex—aggregating to a capacity of 2.66 MW.

Having bagged orders for 470 chargers in pilot stage itself, Bengaluru based electric scooter startup FAE Bikes plans to aggressively expand its IOT enabled EV charging network. The chargers—costing just Rs 10,000—can be set up anywhere including small shops and homes with standard power supply.

While lithium batteries have taken center stage for energy storage, vanadium redox flow batteries could gain considerable traction in 2020. In previous years, vanadium battery installations around the world have done little more than provide proof of concept and a test bed for manufacturers, argues David Gillam from Mastermines. He looks at what may have changed since then and why a surge in batteries utilizing vanadium may be closer than many believe, with China taking the lead.