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Category: energy – Page 237

This Compressed Air Grid ‘Battery’ Is an Energy Storage Game Changer

Pumped hydropower is great. This method might be even better.

Two new compressed air storage plants will soon rival the world’s largest non-hydroelectric facilities and hold up to 10 gigawatt hours of energy. But what is advanced compressed air energy storage (A-CAES), exactly, and why is the method about to have a moment?

Compressed air is part of a growingly familiar kind of energy storage: grid-stabilizing batteries. Like Elon Musk’s battery farm in Australia and other energy overflow storage facilities, the goal of a compressed air facility is to take extra energy from times of surplus and feed it back into the grid during peak usage.

Here’s how the A-CAES technology works: Extra energy from the grid runs an air compressor, and the compressed air is stored in the plant. Later, when energy is needed, the compressed air then runs a power-generating turbine. The facility also stores heat from the air to help smooth the turbine process later on.

Regenerative Braking & Energy Storage Without Batteries? Hobbyists Are Figuring It Out

One of the best thing about electric and hybrid vehicles is that the energy doesn’t get completely wasted when you need to brake. By using an electric motor as a generator, you can slow a vehicle down and put some of that kinetic energy into a battery pack so you can use it again later. Sure, there are conversion losses both going into the battery and coming back out to the wheels, so you don’t get a lot more than half of the energy back, but an ICE vehicle turns all of that energy into heat, which gets dissipated into the air.

Electric bikes, scooters, and other micromobility options can do regenerative braking, too. This is great for getting better range and doing fewer brake jobs, just like in a car.

But can this be done without batteries and electric motors? Can you store energy away for later use? It turns out that you can, and this guy built a bicycle that does it.

A Company Is Taking on Tesla With Its Easy-Install Solar Roof Tiles

And it claims any roofer can install its new solar shingles.

GAF Energy, a division of roofing giant GAF, developed new solar shingles that are so easy to install no special equipment or knowledge is required, a TechCrunch report reveals.

The new accessible home renewable energy option provides serious competition for Tesla, who revealed their own new tiles with 22 percent more energy capacity last month.

Solar shingles have traditionally been difficult to install, as they replace traditional shingles to act as roofing material and solar cells at the same time. Tesla’s solar roofs, for example, require a special team to carry out what is essentially a whole roof replacement that has, in the past, taken weeks to complete.

With its new solar shingles, GAF Energy hopes to make installation easier and more flexible. Not only will it allow quicker install times, but it will also allow specific patches of roofing to be replaced with solar shingles, meaning customers won’t only have the option of replacing their entire roof.

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China to cut new energy vehicle subsidies

China has cheap labour and huge market so still EV companies will invest in China.

BEIJING, Jan 1 (Reuters) — China will cut subsidies on new energy vehicles (NEVs), such as electric cars, by 30% in 2022 and withdraw them altogether at the end of the year, the Finance Ministry said on its website on Friday.

The ministry had said in April 2020 that NEV subsidies would be cut from 2020 to 2022 by 10%, 20% and 30%, respectively.

For NEVs for public transport, subsidies would be cut by 10% in 2021 and by 20% in 2022.

World’s first super-large ethane carrier delivered in Shanghai

Capable of shipping 99,000 cubic meters of liquefied gas across the Pacific Ocean, the world’s first very large ethane carrier (VLEC), “Pacific Ineos Belstaff,” was named and delivered by Chinese shipbuilder Jiangnan Shipyard Group in Shanghai on Tuesday.

As the largest carrier for ethane in the world by far, the vessel features the Type-B cargo quartet containment system “BrilliancE” developed by Jiangnan Shipyard. B stands for Type-B and E stands for ethane and ethylene.

It is also equipped with dual-fuel technology that can use ethane as fuel through a shaft generator that helps it meet the most stringent emission requirements.

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