Energy Storage

Beacon Power Corp (BCON) announced that it has delivered a flywheel-based power system to Bechtel Bettis, Inc., under a contract that it announced in March 2005. The demonstration system, built using a Smart Energy 6 flywheel, is designed to provide a high cycle-life, reliable source of stored energy for a number of potential applications. "This system we've delivered to Bechtel Bettis is an example of our strategy to address additional market opportunities beyond our primary business focus of providing advanced technology solutions for electric power systems," said Bill Capp, Beacon Power president and CEO. "We continue to seek...

John Petersen I've been blogging about the energy storage sector since last July because batteries, single purpose devices that most of us take for granted unless they need to be recharged or replaced, are an essential enabling technology for cleantech, the sixth industrial revolution. With this week's impressive launch of A123 Systems (AONE), the tsunami of investor interest I've been predicting since last fall has finally arrived. Since the A123 Systems IPO has introduced an entirely new class of investors to the energy storage sector, this seems like a particularly good time to go back to square...

John Petersen wrote a series of popular articles last week to introduce new investors to the battery sector, following the A123 IPO.  We've had a couple requests from readers who missed one part or another, so here is a quick index to the articles. Part I - Battery industry overview. Parrt II - Comparison of energy storage technologies and companies. Part III - Benchmarking Performance of battery stocks Part IV - Debunking misconceptions about electric vehicles and battery technology.

by Debra Fiakas CFA There are a lot of different technologies in the energy storage space.  ZBB Energy (ZBB:  NYSE) has staked its future on zinc bromide.  Batteries using zinc-bromide consist of a zinc negative electrode and a bromine positive electrode with a porous separator in between them.  Unlike conventional batteries, these electrodes do not take part in the reactions but merely serve as substrates for the energy reactions.  Thus there is no loss of performance from repeated cycling causing electrode material deterioration.  The zinc-bromine battery can provide two to three times the energy density...

John Petersen Vinod Khosla, the founder of Sun Microsystems and an icon of cleantech venture capital investing, is famous for bluntly telling audiences that "Economics matters, NOTHING that defies the law of economic gravity can scale." This principle is a simple yet self-evident adaptation of Newton's law gravitation to the human condition. An equally self-evident characteristic of the human condition is explained by Newton's laws of motion, which state: First, that a body at rest will remain at rest, and a body in motion will remain in motion with a constant velocity, unless acted upon...

John Petersen On June 22nd Scientific American rolled-out a Web-only article titled "The Dirty Truth about Plug-in Hybrids, Made Interactive" that summarizes a January 2008 report from Oak Ridge National Laboratory and shows why plug-in vehicles in the U.S. will, on average, be just a little bit dirtier than gasoline HEVs. You read that right – dirtier, not cleaner! I first raised the issue in an August 2009 article titled PHEVs and EVs, Plugging Into a Lump of Coal, where I estimated that plug-in vehicles would be about 25% cleaner than HEVs, but the marginal cost...

Arotech Corporation (ARTX) announced that its Electric Fuel subsidiary has received a follow-on contract from an Israeli security agency for its new generation zinc-air batteries. Under the terms of the contract, Arotech's Electric Fuel subsidiary will continue to develop prototype zinc-air cells to achieve extended flight times for Micro Aerial Vehicles (MAVs). Electric Fuel's cutting-edge zinc-air cells for MAVs are high-power, lightweight versions of its most advanced zinc-air cells. The Company has already demonstrated that its zinc air batteries extend the mission duration of these reconnaissance aircraft.

Much of the buzz in the energy storage sector is focused on DOE administered subsidy programs and what they will mean for investors in smaller public companies. The buzz began when Title XVII of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 ("EPACT") authorized $2 billion in loan guarantees for innovative energy technologies. It ramped up rapidly when the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 authorized another $2.5 billion in loan guarantees under the Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing ("ATVM") program. It reached a crescendo when the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 ("ARRA") authorized $7 billion in smart grid,...

by Debra Fiakas CFA Last month BioSolar (BSRC:  OTC/PK) reported positive test results for its proprietary energy storage technology.  The company is developing an alternative anode material for lithium ion batteries using silicon-carbon materials.  BioSolar’s engineers are targeting dramatic improvement in anode performance and equally impressive reductions in cost.  If they are successful, it could mean longer lithium ion battery life, greater capacity and shorter charging time  -  the dreams of every manufacturer with an electronic product. Most lithium ion batteries rely on graphite for the battery anode.  However, silicon anodes could offer as much as ten...

John Petersen In his 2006 State of the Union Address, President George W. Bush said: "Keeping America competitive requires affordable energy. And here we have a serious problem: America is addicted to oil, which is often imported from unstable parts of the world. The best way to break this addiction is through technology." What a crock of balderdash! If you compare US fuel prices with those in other industrialized countries, gasoline is a screaming bargain and the same can be said for electricity. It's not the energy we use that's a problem. The problem is the...

John Petersen The second quarter was a turbulent period for investors in the energy storage and vehicle electrification sectors. Johnson Controls (JCI), C&D Technologies (CHHP.PK) and the enchanted, mystical, gravity defying Tesla Motors (TSLA) were up a little. Everybody else was down as fear, loathing and uncertainty ran rampant and the congenital birth defects of EVs and batteries to power them proved to be insurmountable obstacles for all but St. Elon of Palo Alto, the patron saint of expensive toys. While the second quarter wasn't pleasant for most of the companies I track, I draw some comfort...

John Petersen In November 2006, a slick issue-oriented documentary asked the provocative question "Who Killed the Electric Car" and argued that General Motors' EV1 project was terminated because of collusion between the auto and oil industries. The truth is nobody killed the electric car. It died in infancy from congenital birth defects and the same flaws that killed the EV1 will probably kill Tesla Motors, Fisker Automotive, Nissan's (NSANY) Leaf and GM's Volt. This is not a question of cost, performance, abuse tolerance or cycle-life. It's a fundamental flaw in the economics of using batteries to replace a...

Tom Konrad, CFA NiMH battery company that's going to "make coal and oil obsolete" sleuthed out. I can't help but chuckle at the hyperbole of some promoters of alternative energy stocks.  We can wish that coal and oil will be obsolete tomorrow all we want, but it ain't gonna happen.  That's just what Nick Hodge was claiming in a recent teaser for Highpower Technology (HPJ).  How do I know it's Highpower that Hodge is hailing as the answer to all our hopes?  Because Travis Johnson, the Stock Gumshoe told me so.  Travis is the same...

Altair Nanomaterials (ALTI) announced that its battery research and development team successfully completed a testing program for lithium ion battery cells containing Altairnano's nano-structured lithium titanate electrode materials. "The test results demonstrated that the performance of these lithium ion battery cells exceed the system-level power requirements set forth by the U.S. Council for Automotive Research FreedomCAR Energy Storage System Performance Goals for hybrid electric vehicle (HEVs), as well as those requirements published by major U.S. automakers," said Evan House, Ph.D., Program Director, Altairnano's Advanced Materials & Power Systems business unit. These batteries demonstrate a useable state-of-charge...

John Petersen Today is the third anniversary of my blog on investing in energy storage. While the last three years have been profoundly troubled by a market crash, a slow recovery and more ups and downs than a roller coaster, energy storage has been surging to prominence as investors realize that batteries, products we all love to hate, are a critical enabling technology for wind and solar power, efficient transportation, the smart grid and hundreds of other applications that make life more pleasant. With each passing day it's increasingly clear that energy storage is an investment mega-trend that...