Columbia Electrochemical Energy Center (CEEC) Announced

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CEEC, Columbia, electrochemistry, energy, energy storage, grand challenges, interdisciplinary

Based in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), Columbia has officially lunched the Columbia Electrochemical Energy Center (CEEC). There are nine core faculty members in the center,  which brings together interdisciplinary teams of students and faculty from chemical, earth & environmental, mechanical, and electrical engineering to tackle grand challenges in electrochemical energy conversion technologies.  Find out more about the center in this SEAS press release and/or check out these videos promoting the new center:

 

 

 

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The costs and value of hooking solar up to the grid

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arizona, electric grid, energy storage, fees, hawaii, intermittency, Maine, net-metering, solar

Here is an interesting article discussing fees that various utilities in the U.S. have begun to charge solar PV home owners for hooking up to the grid so that they can buy electricity from the grid when their panels aren’t generating electricity, and sell electricity back tot he grid when they are:

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/why-some-states-are-making-going-solar-more-expensive-2015-12-04

The article mentions a source that says that 40-60% of a solar PV systems output goes back to the grid.

There are a lot of debates right now in this country and throughout the world trying to figure out exactly the value of solar-generated electricity.

If the costs of hooking up to the grid become too high, it will create an incentive for solar home owners to go off grid with home-scale energy storage (e.g. batteries, solar fuels).

 

 

New record for direct solar water splitting efficiency: 14%!

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benchmark efficiency, energy storage, hydrogen, solar fuels

“Surpassing the 17 year record of 12.4 percent, the new efficiency level of 14 percent helps build a promising future for solar hydrogen production” -ECS News

http://www.ecsblog.org/record-breaking-energy-efficiency-levels/

direct link to nature communications paper here:

http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2015/150915/ncomms9286/full/ncomms9286.html#affil-auth

The Methanol Economy

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CO2 reduction, energy, energy storage, hydrogen, methanol, methanol economy

We often hear about and talk about the “Hydrogen Economy“, an energy system that is centered around the use of hydrogen (H2) as the main energy carrier.  Such a system is attractive for three main reasons: i.) the associated CO2 emissions can approach zero (assume H2 is produced from water splitting using renewable electricity from solar or wind), ii.) H2 can be efficiently converted to electricity by H2 fuel cells, and iii.) H2 fuel can be used in many different applications ranging from transportation to general electricity use.

Another alternative is the “Methanol Economy” in which the primary energy carrier is methanol.  The primary advantage of methanol over hydrogen is its ability to be stored as a liquid at room temperature and pressure, making a methanol storage and transport infrastructure much more simple (low cost) and energy efficient.  Currently, methanol is produced predominantly from syngas (CO + H2) produced from fossil fuels, but it can also be made directly from the reduction of CO2 (with H2O providing the H2).

For a high-level overview of the methanol economy, here is an excellent article in Angewandte Chemie written by George Olah, the 1994 Nobel Prize winner in chemistry and major advocate of the methanol economy:

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/anie.200462121/abstract

Renewable Energy Intermittency in Hawaii

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energy storage, hawaii, intermittency, Oahu, smart grid, solar, wind

Hawaii is in a particularly unique position in terms of renewable energy production because it has abundant renewable resources (solar, wind, geothermal), lacks in-state fossil fuels, and is comprised of a series of islands that have their own isolated electric grids.  This isolation, combined with the fact that Hawaii now gets 21% of its electric power from intermittent solar and wind, creates large challenges for grid operators who are constantly trying to balance the supply and demand of electricity: http://www.wsj.com/articles/hawaii-wrestles-with-vagaries-of-solar-power-1435532277 The solution(s)?  Currently, the state utility is starting to implement smart grid components while also telling many customers to hold off on installing new residential  PV systems. They are also seeking bids for installing 300 MW of energy storage on Oahu, the biggest island in Hawaii.

Tesla’s Household Battery System

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batteries, Elon Musk, energy storage, grid scale energy storage, lithium ion batteries, solar, Tesla

Elon Musk’s Tesla Motors company officially announced the upcoming release of a product, a 7 or 10 kWhr household battery that it calls the Powerwall:

http://techgenmag.com/2015/05/02/will-teslas-powerwall-shake-up-the-solar-energy-industry/

The rechargeable Lithium ion based battery leverages Tesla’s current expertise and manufacturing resources in this area for it’s electric cars, and targets owners of residential solar panels.

In states like Arizona and Wisconsin where there will be significant fees on solar owners to hook up to the grid, owning your own source of energy storage to deal with solar intermittency will look more and more attractive to solar-owners going forward.

You can see a presentation announcing Tesla’s new battery system and providing more details here:

Germany’s upcoming solar eclipse

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electric grid, energy storage, Germany, solar, solar fuels, solar intermittency

We often talk about solar intermittency being a major challenge for wide-spread adoption of solar energy, and a major motivating factor for developing solar fuels technology. Solar intermittency is especially problematic for electric grid operators, who try to constantly balance electricity demand and supply.  Grid-scale energy storage is one solution to this problem, but currently no economical options exist except for a few places that are well-suited for pumped hydro storage.

The resiliency of Germany’s power grid – which gets the highest percentage of its electricity from solar in the world at 7% – may get a huge test this coming week when a major solar eclipse is supposed to occur.  An eclipse can cause a lot more trouble than clouds because it can suddenly affect a very large area of land, resulting in a much more rapid “turn off” and “turn on” of solar-electricity being produced.

The following article gives a more detailed description of what the eclipse means for Germany’s electric grid, and includes a nice plot of the expected solar electric output during the course of the day:

http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2015/03/solar-eclipse-germany-power