Norfolk Southern Railway No. 999, which opened a few years ago, is the nation’s first completely electric, battery-powered locomotive. While it certaily has significant upsides when compared to diesel trains, there are still some kinks to be worked out. The primary of which is the reliance on lead-acid batteries, … [continued]
The European Investment Bank announced Tuesday that it was providing electric car networks company Better Place with a €40 million loan, continuing the institution’s support for innovation and sustainable transportation. Approximately €30 million of the proceeds will be used to finalize network deployments throughout and fund operators in Denmark, with the … [continued]
The world has become a remarkably technologically-advanced place to live. Electronically-minded people 15 years ago were simply amazed to send texts to friends on their chunky mobile phones — and desktop computers were behemoths that often resembled the monoliths from 2001: A Space Odyssey (except white, not black). Now, it’s … [continued]
A Drexel University research team has developed energy storage technology that it believes can solve a vexing problem: how to cost-effectively store intermittent electrical energy from renewable sources at grid-level scale. The research team combined the concepts underlying flow, or redox, batteries used in electric vehicles (EVs) with those of … [continued]
The US Energy Information Agency (EIA) recently had a pretty interesting and useful post on electricity storage you might be interested in checking out. Here’s a nice graphic from the post, followed by the intro: “Electricity storage can be deployed throughout an electric power system—functioning as generation, transmission, distribution, … [continued]
For more than a decade, scientists have tried to improve lithium-based batteries by replacing the graphite in one terminal with silicon, which can store 10 times more charge. But after just a few charge/discharge cycles, the silicon structure would crack and crumble, rendering the battery useless. Now a team led … [continued]
The CUNY Energy Institute has developed a new low-cost, safe, non-toxic battery with fast discharge rates and high energy densities that could save thousands in energy costs each month. An operating prototype zinc-anode battery system has been developed and is now housed in the basement of Steinman Hall on … [continued]
Electric vehicles aren’t exactly cheap to purchase, and one of the main factors in determining EV price is the price of the battery packs. The changing cost of EV batteries, however, is good news […]
Working in tandem, the University of Southampton and lithium battery technology company REAPsystems have discovered that a new type of battery has the potential to increase the efficiency and reduce the cost of solar power. The study looked specifically at the use of lithium batteries as a storage method … [continued]
California-based Better Place has teamed up with China Southern Power Grid to introduce a fully automated battery switch-out operation for electric vehicles in Guangzhou, the third largest city in China. If the idea is to make recharging an EV battery just as quick and convenient as buying a tank of … [continued]
