Chris Bingham

The University of Sheffield

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 Drivers for Change
Increased focus on Energy Storage
• Reduce reliance on fossil fuels
• Commitment for reducing GHG
emissions (80%, 2050)
• Accommodating increasing
supply demand

Mean Emissions Trend (10yr)

Industry,
Domestic Aviation
Cars Demand NAEI (2008)

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 Domestic Transport Moving in Right Direction
•  UK identifies electric drive as
key technology for
decarbonising roads

Low market penetration to date—

179 vehicles in 2008

UK new alternatively fuelled vehicle registrations (CENEX, 2009)

•  Road Transport accounts for 22% of UK CO2 emissions

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Intermittent/variable generation Intermittent/variable duty
(unpredictable in real time) (unpredictable in real time)
• Off-shore wind • Domestic buildings
• On-shore wind farms • Industrial/Commercial
• Solar Buildings
• Tidal/Wave Storage • Automotive Vehicles
(15% by 2020) •  domestic, public,
electrical, commercial
• Power stations thermal, • Aerospace
•  Gas, nuclear, coal mechanical, •  Commercial, military
•  CHP, hydro… geographical • …..

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 Harvesting (eg. Wind Power)
• Highlighted as a key harvesting source for UK/
EU countries eg. Denmark ~20%.
• During ‘low energy harvesting’/down time—
recourse to ‘buying in’ electricity at a premium !
• 1/3 cost of electricity due to accommodating
infrastruture/downtime/outages (eg $6B 2003
Northeast Blackout)
• Power buffers: £1k/kW (hours duration)
-but also protects against outages
-frequency regulation
-short-term planning possible
-readily permits integration of multiple
harvesting sources
-improve stability of grid !

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 Challenges 1
CASE STUDY: F1, KINETIC ENERGY RECOVERY

Inputs/Requirements Capture Solutions

• Known amount of energy can be
transiently recovered
• Known method of recovery
(braking zones)
• Known amount of power delivery (limited)
• Known duty (how often power can be Adopted (competitive)
delivered)
• Known ‘storage mass’
• Known vehicles/deployment
(limited variation)
• Know user profiles
Limited number of circuits
that are well known
• ‘No Cost Constraint’ or NONE AT ALL !

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 Challenges 2
The ‘rest of us’; The ‘Real World’

Inputs/Requirements Capture Hard Constraints

• Amount of energy that can be transiently • Economic factors

recovered ? • Facilitate widespread deployment of energy
• Method of recovery ? • Infrastructure
• Amount of power delivery ? • Risk Mitigation !—whose risk ?
• Duty ? • Health and Safety
• Future demands ? • IPR/Sharing best practice
• Quality, harmonics, VA • Limited expertise—who has the capability ?
• Supply chains
• Legislation
• Supply security
OPTIONS ?

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 Flywheels 30kW, 60krpm,
300Wh Rotor 15kg,
• Energy stored in rotating mass system >60kg

• Energy input and recovery by elect. or mech. coupling

• Energy storage proportional to mass of rotor and the square
of rotational speed and rotor radius
• Considered as peak power buffers 60kW, 60krpm, 112Wh
• Stationary systems often use high mass rotors Rotor 5kg, system 25kg
• Peak power supply and recovery limited only by gearbox or
motor/generator
• Safety necessitates strong containment
– high proportion of mass (Flybrid Systems LLP, 2009)
• Diagnostics and prognostics to be able to run flywheels
closer to their theoretical mechanical limits
• Energy loss ~35% per hour due to friction losses Part of 20MW
• Lifetime of 15-20 years anticipated flywheel plant
at Beacon Power
– main degradation in bearings Corp., Mass.
• Potential material supply constraints if exotic core materials
and/or rare earth magnets used (e.g NdFeB,SmCo)
• Requires little infrastructure (THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, 2009)

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 Super/Ultra Capacitors
• Proximity of electrostatic charges allows energy storage
• High power density—ideal for rapid charge/discharge—
limited only by internal impedance and associated
electronics.
• Can be fully discharged without damage
• As with electrochemical batteries, no limit to number of
series/parallel units.
• Energy density relatively low compared with batteries
•  High stored energy requires plates with high surface area
and high permittivity dielectrics.
• Need temperature control for efficiency and lifetime.
• Requires cell balancing
• Relatively safe (needs protection from over-voltage)
Future ?
-Combined battery/supercap solutions
300 × saft supercaps
-Use ‘nano-pitting’ of cell plates to increase surface area 350F/cell (~50F total)

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 Li-ion/polymer

• Becoming preferred solution

• High energy density ~170Wh/kg
• Impediments
-cost
-support infrastructure
-supply of Li (S. America)
-damage, exposure of Li
-thermal runaway
-precise cell charge/discharge control required
-thermal environment needs consideration (ZD Net UK)
• Companies like ‘A123 Systems’, Mitsubishi, among
others, looking to use as load levelling for automotive,
solar, wind etc infrastructure (‘MW level’ systems)

•  Future: silicon nanowires ? (stanford uni)

Li-Sulphur ?

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 High Temperature Sodium Nickel Chloride Battery—ZEBRA
Individual cells installed in Operational characteristics
vacuum insulated casing to •  High temperature battery module 270°C-350°C
reduce heat loss
•  Heat loss about 3°C per/h (90W)
•  Internal resistance reduces with increased
temperature
•  During charging battery can absorb heat
•  Requires high utilisation for maximum benefit

Advantages
•  High nominal cell voltage 2.58V
•  Capacity independent of rate, Ah(in)=Ah(out)
•  100% coulombically efficient, accurate DoD
estimation is possible
•  High energy density of 150Wh/kg (4x higher than
lead-acid, and 3x nickel-metal hydride)

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 Future for Lead-Acid ? (ALABC)

Freedom Car Goal for

Maximum Power-Assist

Combined Pb/supercap!

• Carbon-based negative
electrode, PbC
• High cycle life
• 90% DoD
• Low cost
• Energy D. approaching Pb
• Power D. approaching S-C
• Readily disposable
• Infrastructure exists
(ALABC)
• Cheaper per cycle than Pb !

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 (ALABC)

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 A Fuel-cell or Hydrogen Economy ?
• H-Most abundant element in Universe
• Essentially endless supply
• Typically used in fuel-cells
-by product, water/steam
-’pollution or emission free’ (?)
-can be expanded to support grid
energy/power—from renewable sources
-well-proven technology
-safe ?
Considered by many to be THE ideal solution
• Not a producer of energy !
• Energy storage medium
(electrochemical)
• Requires reforming (eg gas) or
electrolysis (eg from methanol) for
extraction
• Or, separation of water using
‘harvested electricity’ !!! Very
inefficient use of electricity (~25%
conversion efficiency)
• Solid Oxide ? High temp ?

FUEL-CELLS (candidate for localised stand-by systems):

Efficiency ~40-50%
3000 × more volume required than petrol wrt. Energy
Leakage a safety issue, so ideally liquefied (→0 K), then still ¼ volume/energy ratio of petrol

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 Large Scale Compressed Air—mines !
• Three methods:
-adiabatically: heat stored during compression
-diabatically: heat removed during compression
-Isothermal: constant temperature compression—
ideal but never achievable

Adiabatic systems include heat storage through use

of rocks, stone or oil. Complex
• Diabatic systems less efficient but simpler, and
has been commercialised—typically >50%
thermal efficiency:McIntosh CAES, 110MW,
power delivery for 26hours

• Readily integrates energy from different

harvesting sources
Iowa Stored Energy Park (ISEP), 2007, ‘will harvest wind energy and store it for future use’

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 CHP
•  Largely regarded as key technology • Potential for 14% emissions reduction
for domestic energy waste reduction
• Need elec. storage to maximise
•  Most likely on a mini- and large-scale economic benefits eg.battery/supercaps
rather than micro-scale.
rather than flywheels
•  >80% of household energy used for
space heating and heating water

•  Typically, primary drive: ICE performance considered most

-ICE, Stirling (current favourite), Gas useful for near future, but emissions,
Turbine, fuel-cells (solid oxide) ? noise and vibration prohibitive—
although improving

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 Free Piston Energy Converter

(Volvo)

• Floating piston – eliminates

crankshaft
•  Piston motion controlled by
electrical machine
•  Facilitate optimum
combustion, various
fuels

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 Is Efficiency Important ?
•  Yes, if we are consuming a • Harvesting not ‘consuming’ a resource
resource
• ‘Harvest’ more and store energy !
•  Limited output power/transient
availability

But, heating/stress on components higher—need to

be larger—more components/equipment—cooling !!! IPR !!!
Cost to manufacturer and operator Are you really green?
Increased efficiency—better profit margin Why protect?
Incentive to invest--Better for consumer

Reliability and Robustness over-arching factors!

Management of Power through Storage
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 ‘Crystal Ball’ on the Future-Large Scale Storage
Development in supercaps to supersede batteries in some traditional battery applications
-lifetime/fit-and-forget/improved energy density
Harvesting technologies (wind, wave) supported by localised storage (more robust
infrastructure). -Need efficient power conversion at source.
Local-domestic:
-Minor retro-fits to current house/heating systems—eg.TRVs and
‘intelligent’ boiler control (‘rolled deployment’ based on natural wastage of
old units). Don’t know how to control yet! (a story for another day)
Local-district:
-Battery (possibly Pb)/supercap hybrids supporting CHP
-Harmonic/power quality control—domestic supply communications to utility
Challenges:
-Be transparent to user/social acceptance/demonstrable benefit
-Supply security/stability
-TECHNOLOGY RELIABILITY
-Energy Management—efficient power integration and conversion
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