Energy Storage

The mobile electric vehicle chargers will be deployed in cities and highways across India, mitigating the range anxiety among electric vehicle (EV) owners. These are equipped with a range of slow and fast chargers to support two-wheelers to commercial vehicles to premium EVs.

National Renewable Energy Laboratory researchers have studied which tech offers the lowest levelized cost of energy to provide the US Western Interconnection grid with electricity when wind and solar are not available. They assumed 85% renewables penetration and determined that geologic hydrogen storage and natural gas combined-cycle plants with carbon capture storage are the cheapest options for 120-hour discharge applications. 


Scientists have demonstrated a zinc-ion battery that overcomes many of the challenges for this technology. By working with a highly-concentrated salt solution as the electrolyte, the group was able to achieve stability over more than 2,000 cycles combined with a strong electric performance. The group says that its work opens up “a viable route to developing aqueous batteries for emerging electrochemical energy storage applications.”

Thermal energy storage is dense, efficient, and suitable for greenfield and brownfield projects, with a potentially long lifespan. It can also be built with recyclable or low-impact storage materials. So why is it taking so long to achieve widespread commercial success? Tristan Rayner explores the latest developments.

Currently, the cost of producing green hydrogen ranges from 3.6 to 5.8 USD/kg depending on the renewable energy mix and electrolyzer technology. Scaling the electrolyzer production globally will help drive down green hydrogen costs. 

Scientists in Bangladesh have evaluated how a 50 MW floating PV plant could be integrated with the 230 MW Karnafuli Hydroelectric Power Station, located at the Kaptai Dam on the Karnaphuli River. They found that the two energy sources can be perfectly optimized and that PV can compensate for the reservoir’s shortage of water storage during the winter season while hydropower can compensate for the poor yields of the floating array during the monsoon season.

Energy Vault secured $100 million in Series C funding for its EVx tower, which stores gravitational potential energy for grid dispatch.

As technology redefines the delivery of network services, grid operators in remote areas the world over are searching for more cost-effective and reliable alternatives to traditional poles and wires. Standalone power systems are the solar application that is at the forefront of the switch, and they’re ramping up fast.

The solar-powered EV charging station at Karna Lake Resort, Karnal, is one of the 20 such stations set up by Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL) along the Delhi-Chandigarh highway. It is equipped with AC001 (3×3.3kW), DC001 (15kW), and 72kW (50kW DC+22kW AC) chargers to charge all types of electric cars plying currently in the country.

A new study provides a first-of-its-kind assessment of grid-scale energy storage deployment in India both in the near term and the long term. The researchers conducted scenarios-based capacity expansion modeling to assess when, where and how much energy storage can be cost-effectively deployed in India through 2050. In all scenarios, energy storage was found to play a significant role in India’s power system.