HollandPark

PS : BEYOND BATTERIES / Seawater Pumped Storage .................................... It already exists - in Japan In the 1960's Japan started to research seawater power in the form of a seawater pumped-storage (SPS). After years of research and they have built the first Seawater Pumped-Storage Power Plant in the world, and have been testing it for over 5 years. Okinawa Yanbaru Power Plant The project is a demonstration plant for seawater pumped storage power generation located at the northern part of Okinawa Island. In practicalization of seawater pumped storage power generation, there was a necessity to find concrete solutions to technical problems arising from the use of seawater and problems of impacts on the environment. There is no case of seawater pumped storage power generation actually having been done anywhere in the world up to the present, and this pilot plant constitutes a first example. @: http://www.seawaterpower.com/fullstory.html

Hmmm... Perhaps I should look into the price of Lithium = = Meantime, I have stumbled across this company: Headquartered in Vancouver, B.C. Canada, VRB Power Systems Inc. (?VRB Power?) is an electrochemical energy storage company that is commercializing the patented VRB? Energy Storage System (?VRB-ESS??) and has acquired the intellectual property rights comprising the Regenesys Energy Storage System (?RGN-ESS??). Both technologies represent a new enabling capability to effectively store large amounts of electricity on demand. They can provide direct economic benefits to utilities and end users in terms of improved power quality, reliability and energy efficiency. They are particularly well suited to load levelling (peak shaving), electrical power arbitrage, grid stability enhancements, capital deferment and Remote Area Power Supply (RAPS) applications. The Company is focused on stationary power sources such as utility substations, commercial buildings, production facilities, telecommunication operations, cellular radio sites, and renewable resource generation such as wind farms and solar applications -- creating the ability to provide ?firm? capacity. As a ?green? technology, the VRB-ESS is characterized by having a low ecological impact and is unlike most other conventional energy storage systems that rely on toxic substances such as lead or cadmium. VRB Power is publicly listed on the TSX Venture Exchange (?VRB?) and the OTC Pinksheets (?VRBPF?). Stocks: @: http://www.vrbpower.com/investor-relations/stock.html

" lead-acid batteries " are rapidly becoming yesterday's technology. "While maintenance issues necessitated the exclusive fielding of sealed VRLA batteries in outdoor cabinets, the fluctuating temperature environments of the cabinets have created serious concerns of battery life, and safety issues. The performance of VRLA batteries deteriorates drastically as the environmental temperature increases beyond 30 oC. Unfortunately in some outdoor cabinets temperature can increase to as high as 50-55 oC which seriously decreases the life of the VRLA battery. Higher temperature can also lead to gas pressure buildup in the battery causing explosion and fire. Another issue with Lead-acid batteries is its large volume. Space is premium in outdoor cabinets. Telecom operators would rather use the space to house revenue-producing telephone equipments than batteries. These factors coupled with increasing power requirements for enhanced services are requiring telecom providers to come up with advanced battery solutions having significantly more energy content per unit volume and longer service time. " @: http://www.modenergy.com/applications.html = = Li-Ion looks the future, along with... what else??

STORED POWER is catching on as an investment theme. There is a new thread on Advfn with CHARTS!: http://www.advfn.com/cmn/fbb/thread.php3?id=11367193 Top companies are: Active Power (ACPW) Beacon Power (BCON) EnerSys (ENS) Hitachi Ltd. (HIT) Maxwell /PowerCache (MXWL) SAFT Groupe (FR:SAFT) Teledyne Technologies (TDY) Toshiba (TOSBF) VRB Power Systems, Inc. (v.VRB) A key company in the sector is: EnerSys (ENS): is the world's largest manufacturer, marketer and distributor of industrial batteries. EnerSys is the largest industrial battery manufacturer in the world, operating 21 manufacturing and assembly facilities worldwide for customers in over 100 countries. Worldwide and Americas headquarters are located in Reading, Pennsylvania, USA with regional headquarters in Europe and Asia. EnerSys is uniquely positioned to provide expertise in designing, building, installing and maintaining a comprehensive stored energy solution for industrial applications throughout the world. The company's products and services are focused on two primary markets: Motive Power (North & South America) or (Europe) and Reserve Power (Worldwide), (Aerospace & Defense) or (Speciality Batteries). . . . The EnerSys story began over 100 years ago, when The Electric Storage Battery Company ( ESB) was founded near Philadelphia in 1888 - its Chloride Accumulator Battery helped launch the Age of Electricity. ESB grew dramatically over the years, through product innovation and by expanding the uses for battery power for automotive and industrial applications. Today's EnerSys can trace its roots to the ESB industrial battery business. The current company was formed in 2000 from the Motive Power and Reserve Power businesses of Yuasa Inc. In March 2002 EnerSys purchased the Energy Storage Group of Invensys plc making EnerSys one of the world's largest providers of standby DC power solutions. EnerSys' leading brands include Hawker, PowerSafe, DataSafe, Exide and Genesis. - - It's movements seem to correlate with the Oil Sector/XLE, but with bigger swings

JUST OUT !!! 29 March, 2005 New battery offers unsurpassed recharge performance and high energy density TOKYO -- Toshiba Corporation today announced a breakthrough in lithium-ion batteries that makes long recharge times a thing of the past. The company's new battery can recharge 80% of a battery's energy capacity in only one minute, approximately 60 times faster than the typical lithium-ion batteries in wide use today, and combines this fast recharge time with performance-boosting improvements in energy density. The new battery fuses Toshiba's latest advances in nano-material technology for the electric devices sector with cumulative know-how in manufacturing lithium-ion battery cells. A breakthrough technology applied to the negative electrode uses new nano-particles to prevent organic liquid electrolytes from reducing during battery recharging. The nano-particles quickly absorb and store vast amount of lithium ions, without causing any deterioration in the electrode. The excellent recharging characteristics of new battery are not its only performance advantages. The battery has a long life cycle, losing only 1% of capacity after 1,000 cycles of discharging and recharging, and can operate at very low temperatures. At minus 40 degrees centigrade, the battery can discharge 80% of its capacity, against 100% in an ambient temperature of 25 degree centigrade). Toshiba will bring the new rechargeable battery to commercial products in 2006. Initial applications will be in the automotive and industrial sectors, where the slim, small-sized battery will deliver large amounts of energy while requiring only a minute to recharge. For example, the battery's advantages in size, weight and safety highly suit it for a role as an alternative power source for hybrid electric vehicles. Link: http://www.toshiba.co.jp/about/press/2005_03/pr2901.htm The Specifications and characteristics of the new battery are rather amazing

Think of it as a Power Bank... Some say, "I'm not spending 600 quid on a big bulky box (not to mention installation), and I don't reckon many others will too. The beauty of the electricty grid is the economy of scale" What if: Electricity was priced at different prices different times of day (as it is in some locales). For example, if electricity were 50% cheaper at night wouldn't you want to power up your electric car, or your in-home ppwer storage at night (when it is cheap), and then use the stored power during the day, when you need it. The cost savings would be huge. And if we had this system one day, you might find that electricity storage facilities were built into every home Not too far-fetched, I think +++++ TECHNOLOGIES: Restructuring of the electric power industry has presented new opportunities for the application of a variety of storage devices for better energy management, particularly in the fields of renewable energy and distributed generation. These new applications are in addition to the use of electricity storage in the traditional power generation and delivery infrastructure. Since it is essential to understand the capabilities and limitations of each storage technology before applying them. Here's a basic overview and a list of developers and suppliers to obtain more detailed information. Batteries: Lead-acid Polysulfide Bromide flow Vanadium Redox flow Zinc Bromide flow Sodium Sulfur Lithium Ion Metal-air battery Other: Compressed Air Energy Super Capacitor Flywheels Pumped Hydro storage List : http://electricitystorage.org/tech/technol...echnologies.htm

ELECTRICITY STORAGE : AN INVESTMENT AREA ripe for investment?? TRACKING THE POWER SECTOR : powerindex : companies : forum : batteryspace "Storage of electrical power is critical for the stability and robustness of the electrical grid, and it is essential if we are ever to use solar and wind as our dominant primary power sources. The best place to provide this storage is locally, near the point of use. Imagine that by 2050 every house, every business, every building has its own local electrical storage device, an uninterruptible power supply capable of handling the entire needs of the owner for 24 hours. Because the devices are, ideally, small and relatively inexpensive, the owners can replace them with new models every five years or so as worldwide technological innovation and free enterprise continuously and rapidly develop improvements in this most critical of all aspects of the electrical energy grid. Today, using lead-acid storage batteries, such a unit for a typical house to store 100 kilowatt hours of electrical energy would take up a small room and cost more than $10,000. Through revolutionary advances in nanotechnology, it may be possible to shrink an equivalent unit to the size of a washing machine and drop the cost to less than $1,000. With these advances the electrical grid can become exceedingly robust, because local storage protects customers from power fluctuations and outages. Most importantly, it permits some or all of the primary electrical power on the grid to come from solar and wind. " Source of this section: http://www.evworld.com/view.cfm?section=co...mp;newsid=11392 OTHER CHALLENGES: Battery Life = = = = = LINKS: Electricity Storage Assoc.: http://electricitystorage.org/ News items & innovation : http://www.powermanagementdesignline.com/ Sadoway's Presenation.. : http://www.mitenergyconference.com/files/s...Don_Sadoway.pdf