Solar Energy

Decarbonizing heavy industry with thermal batteries

Published

2 weeks ago

November 27, 2024

sarosh

Decarbonizing heavy industry with thermal batteries

by Zach Winn | MIT News

Boston MA (SPX) Nov 27, 2024

Whether you’re manufacturing cement, steel, chemicals, or paper, you need a large amount of heat. Almost without exception, manufacturers around the world create that heat by burning fossil fuels.

In an effort to clean up the industrial sector, some startups are changing manufacturing processes for specific materials. Some are even changing the materials themselves. Daniel Stack SM ’17, PhD ’21 is trying to address industrial emissions across the board by replacing the heat source.

Since coming to MIT in 2014, Stack has worked to develop thermal batteries that use electricity to heat up a conductive version of ceramic firebricks, which have been used as heat stores and insulators for centuries. In 2021, Stack co-founded Electrified Thermal Solutions, which has since demonstrated that its firebricks can store heat efficiently for hours and discharge it by heating air or gas up to 3,272 degrees Fahrenheit – hot enough to power the most demanding industrial applications.

Achieving temperatures north of 3,000 F represents a breakthrough for the electric heating industry, as it enables some of the world’s hardest-to-decarbonize sectors to utilize renewable energy for the first time. It also unlocks a new, low-cost model for using electricity when it’s at its cheapest and cleanest.

“We have a global perspective at Electrified Thermal, but in the U.S. over the last five years, we’ve seen an incredible opportunity emerge in energy prices that favors flexible offtake of electricity,” Stack says. “Throughout the middle of the country, especially in the wind belt, electricity prices in many places are negative for more than 20 percent of the year, and the trend toward decreasing electricity pricing during off-peak hours is a nationwide phenomenon. Technologies like our Joule Hive Thermal Battery will enable us to access this inexpensive, clean electricity and compete head to head with fossil fuels on price for industrial heating needs, without even factoring in the positive climate impact.”

A new approach to an old technology

Stack’s research plans changed quickly when he joined MIT’s Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering as a master’s student in 2014.

“I went to MIT excited to work on the next generation of nuclear reactors, but what I focused on almost from day one was how to heat up bricks,” Stack says. “It wasn’t what I expected, but when I talked to my advisor, [Principal Research Scientist] Charles Forsberg, about energy storage and why it was valuable to not just nuclear power but the entire energy transition, I realized there was no project I would rather work on.”

Firebricks are ubiquitous, inexpensive clay bricks that have been used for millennia in fireplaces and ovens. In 2017, Forsberg and Stack co-authored a paper showing firebricks’ potential to store heat from renewable resources, but the system still used electric resistance heaters – like the metal coils in toasters and space heaters – which limited its temperature output.

For his doctoral work, Stack worked with Forsberg to make firebricks that were electrically conductive, replacing the resistance heaters so the bricks produced the heat directly.

“Electric heaters are your biggest limiter: They burn out too fast, they break down, they don’t get hot enough,” Stack explains. “The idea was to skip the heaters because firebricks themselves are really cheap, abundant materials that can go to flame-like temperatures and hang out there for days.”

Forsberg and Stacks were able to create conductive firebricks by tweaking the chemical composition of traditional firebricks. Electrified Thermal’s bricks are 98 percent similar to existing firebricks and are produced using the same processes, allowing existing manufacturers to make them inexpensively.

Toward the end of his PhD program, Stack realized the invention could be commercialized. He started taking classes at the MIT Sloan School of Management and spending time at the Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship. He also entered the StartMIT program and the I-Corps program, and received support from the U.S. Department of Energy and MIT’s Venture Mentoring Service (VMS).

“Through the Boston ecosystem, the MIT ecosystem, and with help from the Department of Energy, we were able to launch this from the lab at MIT,” Stack says. “What we spun out was an electrically conductive firebrick, or what we refer to as an e-Brick.”

Electrified Thermal contains its firebrick arrays in insulated, off-the-shelf metal boxes. Although the system is highly configurable depending on the end use, the company’s standard system can collect and release about 5 megawatts of energy and store about 25 megawatt-hours.

The company has demonstrated its system’s ability to produce high temperatures and has been cycling its system at its headquarters in Medford, Massachusetts. That work has collectively earned Electrified Thermal $40 million from various the Department of Energy offices to scale the technology and work with manufacturers.

“Compared to other electric heating, we can run hotter and last longer than any other solution on the market,” Stack says. “That means replacing fossil fuels at a lot of industrial sites that couldn’t otherwise decarbonize.”

Scaling to solve a global problem

Electrified Thermal is engaging with hundreds of industrial companies, including manufacturers of cement, steel, glass, basic and specialty chemicals, food and beverage, and pulp and paper.

“The industrial heating challenge affects everyone under the sun,” Stack says. “They all have fundamentally the same problem, which is getting their heat in a way that is affordable and zero carbon for the energy transition.”

The company is currently building a megawatt-scale commercial version of its system, which it expects to be operational in the next seven months.

“Next year will be a huge proof point to the industry,” Stack says. “We’ll be using the commercial system to showcase a variety of operating points that customers need to see, and we’re hoping to be running systems on customer sites by the end of the year. It’ll be a huge achievement and a first for electric heating because no other solution in the market can put out the kind of temperatures that we can put out.”

By working with manufacturers to produce its firebricks and casings, Electrified Thermal hopes to be able to deploy its systems rapidly and at low cost across a massive industry.

“From the very beginning, we engineered these e-bricks to be rapidly scalable and rapidly producible within existing supply chains and manufacturing processes,” Stack says. “If you want to decarbonize heavy industry, there will be no cheaper way than turning electricity into heat from zero-carbon electricity assets. We’re seeking to be the premier technology that unlocks those capabilities, with double digit percentages of global energy flowing through our system as we accomplish the energy transition.”

Source link

Solar Energy

India mandates local-only solar energy components from 2026

Published

2 hours ago

December 11, 2024

sarosh

India mandates local-only solar energy components from 2026

by AFP Staff Writers

New Delhi (AFP) Dec 10, 2024

Indian clean energy companies will only be able to use solar modules built locally from June 2026, according to a government order apparently aimed at reducing Chinese imports.

Clean energy sector leaders in India, including ventures by conglomerates Reliance Enterprises and Tata Power, rely on Chinese vendors as their major suppliers.

As much as 70 percent of India’s solar power generation capacity is powered by Chinese equipment, according to industry estimates.

Indian companies are already required by law to use locally made solar panels in government projects.

The new rule mandates that only modules made from locally built photovoltaic cells, which convert light energy into electricity, can be used in projects with a bid deadline after Monday’s order.

“This condition will have to be followed irrespective of the date of commissioning,” said the order, issued by India’s renewable energy ministry.

The government is yet to issue the list of approved manufacturers of solar cells because “the installed capacity of solar cells in the country was lower than demand”.

But “with installed capacity of solar cells in the country expected to increase substantially in next year”, a list of approved manufacturers will now be released, the order said.

India’s solar equipment manufacturing space has made rapid strides in recent years.

A report by Bengaluru-based consulting firm Mercom India said the country’s solar panel production was expected to reach 95 gigawatts by the end of 2025.

India added 13.3 gigawatts of solar equipment manufacturing capacity in the first half of 2024, according to the same report.

sai/gle/sn

TATA POWER COMPANY

Source link

Solar Energy

Stellantis, Chinese firm CATL plan $4bn battery plant in Spain

Published

2 hours ago

December 11, 2024

sarosh

Stellantis, Chinese firm CATL plan bn battery plant in Spain

Stellantis, Chinese firm CATL plan $4bn battery plant in Spain

By Valentin Bontemps with Frederique Pris in Paris

Madrid (AFP) Dec 10, 2024

Car giant Stellantis and Chinese manufacturer CATL said Tuesday they would build a $4.3-billion factory to make electric vehicle batteries in Spain, the latest bid to boost Europe’s troubled EV drive.

They said they aim to start production by the end of 2026 at the site in the northern city of Zaragoza.

It “could reach up to 50 GWh capacity, subject to the evolution of the electrical market in Europe and continued support from authorities in Spain and the European Union”, the companies said in a statement.

The two firms signed an agreement in 2023 to produce battery parts for the manufacture of electric vehicles in Europe.

CATL, which has received robust financial support from Beijing, has launched two other European factories, in Germany and Hungary.

Its chief executive Robin Zeng met late on Monday with Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, ahead of the announcement of the 4.1-billion-euro deal.

In a message on X, the Socialist premier thanked the presidents of the two firms for their “firm commitment” to Spain, adding he was “very pleased”.

During a visit to China in September, Sanchez urged the European Union to “reconsider” a plan to impose tariffs on Chinese electric cars, calling for a “compromise” between the economic powerhouses.

Spanish Economy Minister Carlos Cuerpo called the announcement “excellent news for industry and employment in our country”.

Spain has been playing a growing role in European vehicle production, assembling 1.87 million cars in 2023 — the second-biggest producer in the continent after Germany, according to the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association.

– Bumpy patch for carmakers –

The announcement comes at a turbulent time in the car industry as countries seek to switch to low-carbon electric vehicles to curb the climate crisis.

Sweden’s financially strained electric car battery maker Northvolt last month announced the resignation of its chief executive Peter Carlsson.

That came hours after the company sought bankruptcy protection in the United States.

The company said in September it was slashing 1,600 jobs — a quarter of its staff — and suspending the expansion of its site as it struggled with strained finances and a slowdown in demand.

The company had been seen as a cornerstone of European attempts to catch up with China and the United States in the production of battery cells, a crucial component of lower-emission cars.

Stellantis’s former chief executive Carlos Tavares also resigned on December 1, with the company signalling differences over how to save the group’s slumping profits.

Like other auto groups, Stellantis has blamed competition from China and the difficult transition to electric cars for much of its troubles.

It announced on November 26 that it was closing a factory at Luton in England with the loss of 1,100 jobs.

– ‘High-quality’ EVs –

Founded in 2011 in Ningde, eastern China, CATL produces more than a third of the electric vehicle batteries sold in the world.

Italian-US-French company Stellantis produces 14 brands including Fiat, Peugeot-Citroen, Opel, Maserati, Chrysler, Ram and Jeep.

The Zaragoza plant will make lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries, which are cheaper to produce but less powerful compared with nickel manganese cobalt (NMC) ones, the other current mainstream technology.

The companies said the factory, which will be designed to be completely carbon neutral, would enable Stellantis “to offer more high-quality, durable and affordable battery-electric passenger cars, crossovers and SUVs”.

Stellantis chairman John Elkann said in the statement that the venture “will bring innovative battery production to a manufacturing site that is already a leader in clean and renewable energy”.

Zeng said CATL’s goal was “to make zero-carbon technology accessible across the globe”.

The deal is expected to be closed in 2025, subject to regulation.

fmp-vab/ds/rlp

Stellantis

Fiat Chrysler Automobiles

GROUPE PSA

Source link

Solar Energy

Existing EV batteries may last significantly longer under real-world conditions

Published

1 day ago

December 10, 2024

sarosh

Existing EV batteries may last significantly longer under real-world conditions

by Clarence Oxford

Los Angeles CA (SPX) Dec 10, 2024

Electric vehicle (EV) batteries subjected to typical real-world driving scenarios-such as heavy traffic, urban commutes, and long highway trips-could last up to 40% longer than previously projected, according to new research from the SLAC-Stanford Battery Center, a collaboration between Stanford University’s Precourt Institute for Energy and SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. This finding suggests EV owners may delay the costly replacement of battery packs or the purchase of new vehicles for several more years than expected.

Traditionally, battery scientists have tested EV batteries in labs using a constant charge-discharge cycle. While effective for quick evaluations of new designs, this method does not accurately reflect the varied usage patterns of everyday drivers, the study published in *Nature Energy* on Dec. 9 reveals.

Although battery costs have fallen by approximately 90% over the past 15 years, they still represent about one-third of an EV’s price. This research could provide reassurance to current and prospective EV owners about the longevity of their vehicle’s batteries.

“We’ve not been testing EV batteries the right way,” said Simona Onori, the study’s senior author and an associate professor at Stanford’s Doerr School of Sustainability. “To our surprise, real driving with frequent acceleration, braking, stopping for errands, and extended rest periods helps batteries last longer than previously thought based on industry-standard tests.”

Real-World Driving Profiles Improve Battery Lifespan

The researchers developed four distinct EV discharge profiles, ranging from constant discharge to dynamic patterns based on actual driving data. Testing 92 commercial lithium-ion batteries over two years, they found that batteries subjected to realistic driving scenarios demonstrated significantly improved longevity.

Machine learning algorithms were crucial in analyzing the extensive data, revealing that certain driving behaviors, like sharp accelerations, slowed battery degradation. This contradicted prior assumptions that acceleration peaks harm EV batteries. “Pressing the pedal hard does not speed up aging. If anything, it slows it down,” explained Alexis Geslin, one of the study’s lead authors and a PhD candidate in materials science and computer science at Stanford.

Aging from Use vs. Time

The study differentiated between battery aging caused by charge-discharge cycles and aging from time alone. While frequent cycling dominates battery aging for commercial vehicles like buses or delivery vans, time-induced aging becomes a larger factor for personal EVs, which are often parked and idle.

“We battery engineers have assumed that cycle aging is much more important than time-induced aging,” said Geslin. “For consumers using their EVs for daily errands but leaving them unused most of the time, time becomes the predominant aging factor.”

The researchers identified an optimal discharge rate balancing both time and cycle aging for the batteries tested, which aligns with typical consumer driving habits. Manufacturers could update battery management software to incorporate these findings, potentially extending battery lifespan under normal conditions.

Implications for the Future

Evaluating new battery chemistries and designs under realistic conditions is critical for future advancements, said Le Xu, a postdoctoral scholar in energy science and engineering. “Researchers can now revisit presumed aging mechanisms at the chemistry, materials, and cell levels to deepen their understanding,” Xu added.

The study’s principles could apply beyond EV batteries to other energy storage systems, plastics, solar cells, and biomaterials where aging is a key concern. “This work highlights the power of integrating multiple areas of expertise-from materials science and modeling to machine learning-to drive innovation,” Onori concluded.

Research Report:Dynamic cycling enhances battery lifetime