Energy Storage

Netherlands Cuts 2040 Hydrogen Forecast By Almost 60%

Three years is a long time in hydrogen strategy. The Netherlands’ 2023 National Energy System Plan projected roughly 460 petajoules of gaseous hydrogen demand in 2040. Its 2026 National Energy System Plan update cuts that central estimate to about 200 PJ, a reduction of roughly 57%. This is especially interesting … [continued]

DNV’s 2050 Fuel Forecast Leaves Out Electrification

DNV’s new Maritime Forecast to 2050 puts a very large number on shipping’s future demand for low-carbon molecules. In its strongest global-regulation scenario, internationally operating ships above 400 gross tonnes require about 185 million tonnes of oil equivalent of low-GHG fuel in 2050, roughly 7.7 to 7.8 exajoules. That implies … [continued]

Compressed-Gas Storage Demonstrators Got Bigger. The Economics Didn’t Get Better.

Two years ago I called compressed-gas electricity-storage claims mostly hot air. Since then the sector has produced exactly the sort of evidence that should force a reassessment rather than a repetition of the old argument. China has commissioned the 600 MW / 2.4 GWh Huai’an compressed-air demonstration, Hydrostor has pushed … [continued]

Jackery SolarVault 3 Shows Potential To Scale From Balcony To Whole Home

Last week, I wrote about the new Jackery EnergyGuard Max 100 kWh battery at IFA Berlin. This large capacity offers customers home energy storage to easily cover their needs as electrification evolves. Those with large, fully electrified homes, solar arrays and multiple EVs would still have capacity left to participate … [continued]

Farm Electrification Should Start With The Work, Not The Tractor

Ask whether agriculture can electrify and the conversation usually arrives at the same machine within minutes: the tractor. More specifically, the large diesel tractor working hard through planting, harvest or another narrow seasonal window. It is a legitimate engineering challenge, but it is a poor organizing principle for farm electrification. … [continued]

Europe’s Electric Backbone

A strategy for the future of batteries Batteries are the backbone of Europe’s future energy system, its industrial base and its defence readiness. Europe is embedding them across systems at record pace while producing almost none of the key inputs. All of that is supported by public money. This paper sets out the … [continued]

ARES’ Nevada Demonstrator Shows Why Rail Gravity Storage Is A Train Wreck

ARES North America has now operated enough of its GravityLine system at Gamebird Pit in Nevada to make clear its deep limitations to people who didn’t simply do the grade 7 math and science calculations. Sandia National Laboratories documents a pair of mass cars weighing roughly 340 tonnes climbing a … [continued]

Dense-Fluid Pumped Hydro Works. Scaling It Is The Problem.

RheEnergise deserves credit for something a lot of energy-storage startups never accomplish: it built the thing. At Cornwood in Devon, the company constructed upper and lower reservoirs, installed pumps, pipes and generating equipment, manufactured hundreds of cubic metres of its proprietary high-density fluid, pumped that fluid uphill and ran it … [continued]