"Silicon anodes are projected to replace graphite anodes in Li-ion batteries with a huge impact on the amount of energy stored," said Yury Gogotsi, PhD, Distinguished University and Bach Professor in Drexel’s College of Engineering and director of the A.J. Drexel Nanomaterials Institute in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, who was a co-author of the research. "We’ve discovered adding MXene materials to the silicon anodes can stabilize them enough to actually be used in batteries."

The sliding rear bench lets owners manage rear cargo space and interior living area (Credit: Campervan Co/Campers Scotland)

They’re doing more for a number of reasons. Perhaps the biggest is as states and utilities shift away from net metering, solar customers are getting less credit for selling power back to the grid. Combining a hybrid inverter with even a small amount of battery backup can allow homeowners to self-supply power, avoid demand charges and peak time-of-use rates and still get high value for solar systems despite shifting state policies.

Under the scheme, South Australians are free to buy any battery they want as long as technical requirements are met for the storage system to be safe, reliable and capable of being integrated into a virtual power plant.

“Battery-based systems are exploding because they can do time-of-use shifting and get around these solar restrictions,” Brennan said.

A lot of people in rural areas take advantage of this because they either don’t want to deal with the electric company or have no incentive to deal with it, so they use that to push as much power as they can to the house.

A Black & Veatch-designed microgrid at Shell’s Technology Center in Houston, Texas, is actively powering part of the campus while serving as a critical research tool for Shell International Exploration & Production Company’s work to explore the next generation of clean power and distributed energy technologies.

And then there’s his monthly electric bill, which has dropped to—wait for it—zero. That helps him pay off the 10-year loan he took out to buy the solar panel system. When he is done paying it off, in 2028, the system will still have another 15 years under warranty.

It took nearly four more years, but the first Volt — a longer-range version of a plug-in hybrid — rolled off the assembly line late in 2010. GM had hopes that customers would be ready for a car that could go 38 miles on electricity before a small internal combustion generator kicked in.

In the next five to ten years, SiC IGBT chip will get massively utilized in motor controllers (inverters). SiC devices can cut down switching losses significantly, improve system efficiency, reduce dead time, and enhance system output capability. The total cost of battery packs and controllers can drop by 5%, and the mileage range can rise by 10%. Tesla is the first automaker to integrate a full SiC power module in its Model 3. Thanks to its collaboration with STMicroelectronics, the Tesla inverter is composed of 24 1-in-1 power modules assembled on a pin-fin heatsink.

We recently touched on the topic of climate change in an article about how a startup called Climeworks is developing a technology to capture heat-trapping carbon dioxide. The effort is noble, if not entirely lucrative at present. And, let’s face it, the only way to clean up the planet at scale is to make it profitable. The strategy also needs to consider zero-carbon technologies that are practical and proven. Solar energy certainly qualifies under that criteria. The U.S. solar industry generated more than $150 billion in economic activity in 2016, with revenues jumping from $42 million to $210 million over a 10-year period between 2007 and 2017, PBS reported. The article also noted that about twice as many people work in solar-related jobs than in the coal mining industry. Maybe that’s why it seems that so many companies, including Google, are floating the idea of floating solar farms.

The H200 is an energy storage solution that integrates lithium batteries and the H5000 hybrid inverter into a 19-in. industrial enclosure. The H200 now offers Panasonic LNMC and Dragonfly LFP as battery options. The wiring terminals have been relocated to the backside of the H200 for easy access and speedy installation. The distribution panel was also redesigned with micro breakers thus making it more compact and increasing the battery bay space to allow up to 30 kWh of battery storage.