Renerage Developing Renewable Energy Storage

Renerage Developing Renewable Energy Storage

A brand new startup in Davis is looking to lower the costs of battery storage devices dramatically by using second-life used lithium-ion batteries from electric vehicles.  The idea of giving electric car batteries a second life in stationary storage products is not new, but Renerage has new angle on it. UCD Engineering Professor Jae Wan Park and his 3-person team want to focus solely on batteries from the Nissan Leaf because of several advantages:  They are passively air-cooled (most others use active liquid cooling), they use a “flat pack” battery (rather than spiral-wound ones like in the Tesla that look like oversize AA batteries) so they save space, and they can be swapped-out easily. You can see the product in a short YouTube video here.

Dr. Park has designed a module to repackage the used batteries, designed more sophisticated battery management software,  and come up with strategies to extend battery life. He is targeting larger systems where there may be economies of scale, not residential systems.  He is looking to have a standard 1 Megawatt-hour system in a 20-foot ISO shipping container as the lead product, providing peak shaving, peak-shifting, and load management services.  They project costs one-third to one-half those of the Tesla Powerwall.

Dr. Park’s work has been supported by $8 million in research contracts so far  He is looking to raise funding to formally launch Renerage soon. His next step is to install  newly developed prototypes in the microgrid on campus to validate performance in a real setting.

The target price is between one-third and one-half the cost for an equivalent Tesla Powerwall system

Thomas Hall

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Gary Simon is the Chair of CleanStarts Board. A seasoned energy executive and entrepreneur with 45 years of experience in business, government, and non-profits.

Clean Tech Solar Meetup

Clean Tech Solar Meetup

Last Thursday night at the Clean tech meetup, Cleanstart filled The Workshop with people excited to hear about solar companies in the region.  The Workshop is a new co-working space and incubator in the McKinley Park area, in a former manufacturing building.  Owner, Terry Daffin, did a great job on the conversion. It is beautiful space. Aaron Nitzkin of Solar Roof Dynamics and Anderson Barkow of Box Power talked about their respective companies journey after networking.

Solar Roof Dynamics, is in a very competitive space of residential solar.  They have a unique approach to the market which they want to take nationwide.  They support roofers in in expanding their business to include Solar. Since Roofers know the most about roofs and often already have deep networks in communities Solar Roof Dynamics shows them how they can increase their sales and save their customers money. At the same time, working with roofing companies can cut the customer acquisition cost for solar dramatically. Aaron is pretty confident that roofers will become a dominant channel to market for selling solar installations. Aaron also shared his personal experience in riding the “Solar Roller Coaster” (or the “Solar-Coaster” as he put it) of the constant changing landscape from government incentives, utility rules, and PV supply shocks. A much harder business than most realize.

 

Anderson talked about BoxPower’s containerized solar PV-powered micro grid.  They have a microgrid that comes in a shipping container that can be delivered anywhere.  The containers that have 22kw of solar PV and 80 kwh of lead-acid battery storage are put in remote areas away from the grid or in disaster areas where the grid power is off for an extended period.  They now have their microgrids in Puerto Rico supporting villages after Hurricane Maria and in remote Alaskan towns that have historically relied on diesel generators for their microgrids.

It was a great event, look for our event next month, where we will discuss EV Charging.

Thomas Hall

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Thomas is the Executive Director of CleanStart. Thomas has a strong background in supporting small businesses, leadership, financial management and is proficient in working with nonprofits. He has a BS in Finance and a BA in Economics from California State University, Chico. Thomas has a passion for sustainability and a commitment to supporting non-profits in the region.

CleanStart Sponsors

Weintraub | Tobin, Moss Adams, River City Bank, GreenbergTraurig

BlueTech Valley, PowerSoft.biz, Revrnt, Synbyo, Califronia Mobility Center

Energy Storage of The Future

Energy Storage of The Future

        Empower Energy is a new venture just established in Davis, but with roots in Australia.  It is an energy solution company aimed at pursuing the energy storage market, but also targeting an emerging need for micro grid management. It was founded in 2010 by Ezra Beeman, a professional in the energy industry with close to 20 years’ of experience in the electricity supply industry, and a native son of Yolo County. Over the years Beeman recognized inefficiencies in the grid that could be solved by strategically placed storage. The inefficiencies come from losses and low utilization of assets like transformers and power lines. Transmitting and generating power is roughly only 40% of the cost of power, while distribution poles and wire infrastructure make up the rest. Beeman has been able to identify where storage could make the biggest difference in avoiding costs to expand or replace parts of the distribution grid.  Avoiding these costs can actually be worth more than using storage. The trick to capturing these grid savings is in having a device which can interact with the grid and be managed directly or through price signals to provide support to the grid at the right times. All this can be done thanks to Empower Energy’s patented “smart” energy storage device, the ElektroBank. The ElektroBank is a 7 kWh lithium-ion battery-based energy storage device that includes a hybrid inverter, capable of powering rooftop solar PV panels.

        The challenge for the business model is in getting the utilities to pay for these avoided costs in order to pay much of the cost of the ElektroBank.  The structure is in-place for utilities to do this in Australia now, and Beeman is targeting his first sales there to prove the concept. Empower Energy is partnered with Kokem co. Ltd, a South Korean company that provides Empower Energy with lithium-ion batteries that enable the ElektroBank to discharge and recharge double the number of times as most storage devices currently on the market. The patented storage device also makes a separate solar inverter unnecessary, saving customers who install solar a portion of their costs.

        Ultimately, Empower sees units of this type as an essential backbone device to managing power flows in, out, and within micro grids.  Ezra sees the future of the utility as the manager of roadways between a collection of traditional distribution system, a concept much talked about in the US, but not yet implemented.  Empower believes its timing will be good to prove its product’s value in Australia and then to introduce it into evolving markets here in California and select other states such as New York as they adopt third party access approaches comparable to Australia’s.  

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

CleanStart has a new face supporting the region’s Entrepreneurs.  Renonedo Williams is a CSU Sacramento Mechanical Engineering Student who is the newest intern at CleanStart.   He is entering his final semester at Sac State and is looking forward to connecting with as many clean tech startups as possible and understanding each of their value propositions, to connect his enthusiasm of building things to his goal of being his own boss. Renonedo has a background in design and material selection

Sacramento needs to capitalize on clean tech exponential growth.

Sacramento needs to capitalize on clean tech exponential growth.

Everyone in the Startup community is used to seeing exponential growth or adoption projections. It is the goal of everyone with new technology to have  sales grow fast and reap the rewards. For decades people have talked about this growth in the Electric Vehicle market. The movie “Who killed the Electric car” documents this in the 90s.

But now EVs are taking off. They are setting that growth curve. And the Model 3 by Tesla is the 5th bestseller of all passenger cars in the US. Over 6% of all new cars in California are plugin.

EV growth is following the trend of Clean Tech making big leaps forward. Similar to Home Solar and LEDs, EVs have are leading to additional changes. This translates to opportunities for new companies in Charging (like local Clipper Creek), more efficient motors (check ou Highlands Power), battery technology (like new an local Renerage) and autonomous vehicles.  As we shift away from fossil fuels and high carbon to clean tech we will build an economy of the future. This is why CleanStart strives to make Sacramento a hub of innovation and growth in Clean Tech.

 

Connect Now!

Support Sacramento Growth by attending our Meetup, Green Drinks and Remember our October meetup will be on charging. By putting excited clean tech individuals together we can grow the region and ride this growth.

Thomas Hall

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Thomas is the Executive Director of CleanStart. Thomas has a strong background in supporting small businesses, leadership, financial management and is proficient in working with nonprofits. He has a BS in Finance and a BA in Economics from California State University, Chico. Thomas has a passion for sustainability and a commitment to supporting non-profits in the region.

CleanStart Sponsors

Weintraub | Tobin, Moss Adams, River City Bank, GreenbergTraurig

BlueTech Valley, PowerSoft.biz, Revrnt, Synbyo, Califronia Mobility Center

California boosts cleantech with a new “100% renewables” statute

California boosts cleantech with a new “100% renewables” statute

In the last days of the session, the Legislature passed and the Governor has now signed a bill to increase markedly the commitment to renewable energy used to make electricity.  SB 100 increases the requirement  that all sellers of electricity in the state, whether investor-owned utilities, public-owned utilities, community choice aggregators, or any of the competitive marketers, must source 60% of their electricity from renewables by the end of 2030, with criminal penalties if they do not.  This is an increase from the 50% goal in existing law.  Sellers must also meet intermediate goals of 30% by the end of 2020, 44% by the end of 2024, and 52% by the end of 2027.

At the same time, SB 100 declares it state policy to meet 100% of electricity requirements from renewables by 2045.  However, there are no penalties if sellers fall short of 100%.  Instead the bill requires the Public Utilities Commission, the Energy Commission, and the Air Resources Board to take action under their existing authority to achieve the 100% goal, how ever they can figure out.  That’s why “100% renewables” is in quotes here.

Even so, this is a big boost for renewables used to make electricity.  It would double the amount the state uses now by 2030.  That alone would mean a demand for almost 20,000 MW in qualifying generation.  The fact that all sellers of electricity are bound by this requirement opens up a larger set of buyers than just the utilities.  You can read the full text of the final version here.

Thomas Hall

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Gary Simon is the Chair of CleanStarts Board. A seasoned energy executive and entrepreneur with 45 years of experience in business, government, and non-profits.