Goodbye to Chemical Batteries

There are a number of different ways.

- Diesel gen-set backup

- Flywheel backup

- Super capacitor backup (also called ultracapacitor backup)

- Hydrogen fuel cell backup

- Superconducting Magnetic Energy Storage

Perform a Google search (or similar) on the above for more information.

Mr Mealer,

I went to the web page, but could not figure out what you are doing?

Other than save the planet, what are you doing? Taxes? What is that all about?

The energy must come from somewhere, you cannot rely on wind or sun to be available, so probably carbon will be made......fuel will be burnt......

I will stay subscribed as I hope that something really interesting and new will be the result.....

John Lewis Mealer here..

Quick note:

The wordpress site (www.betterconstructed.com) does not give detailed information and I suppose I should explain. Very Simply: MealerAMCs funding is not 100% yet and to explain the fulld etails of the patented engine system, we may create and issue with our VCs and lose or reduce funding while needing to give up additional control of the company.

Please bear with us here!

As soon as we are funded and as long as legalities will allow it, I want to share this patented system and allow others to help MFG this power system. Sure.. I've heard it before from grown men/boys living in their mom's basements, that the MEALER must run on unicorn horn dust and pixie droppings (that system never worked out!)...

We do use Chemical (dry) batteries in the system as an ignition point must originate from somewhere, and lights must be generated from a reliable source, but the recharging engine system is what makes this work so well.

I am not saving the planet as there is nothing wrong with this particular planet except it has too many liberals on it.

Mealer American Motors Corp will be the next major US Automaker. If I have my way, that is...

Try it again. These are WordPress sites and the info is limited until funding is 100%.

http://mealercompanies.com

http://betterconstructed.com

If you don't use batteries (Betteries??), you will involve yourself in far higher initial costs, like 10 times or more higher......

What are you trying to achieve by NOT using batteries? Please let us know.....

Regarding various comments.

1- Diesel Gen Set is out as it is not the solution i am looking for

2- Fuel cell may also is not possible as it requires fuel

3- That leaves us with flywheel and ultracapacitors

Any one can suggest a practical solution with approximate cost

build a dam or a huge tank and pump water up an fill it or let it fill with rain. Drain the water as needed to run a turbine generator.

Use compressed air tanks to store the energy.

There is a guy in San diego who is building an 83 foot yacht and he plans to power it with super capacitors. Maybe you should go talk to him. Feature article in latest Profesional Boatbuilder magazine.

Each of the different types of energy storage backup have their advantages and disadvantages. With flywheel storage, capacity is a problem. Due to their design they don't scale well to small sizes and the smallest reliable low-maintenance flywheel storage devices I am aware of start at 65kVA (Caterpillar's smallest is 120kVA).

http://www.activepower.com/

http://www.cat.com/cda/layout?m=37516&x=7

An ultracapacitor UPS would seem like the best bet, but although this technology is proven and the cost is quite reasonable (but still a lot higher than batteries obviously) I am not aware of any small-scale UPS out on the market that uses them, in fact I am only aware of one being produced for grid connection (313kVA and above).

http://www.sandc.com/products/purewave/ups.asp

Frankly there is no market for either of the above in the kVA rating you are asking for, hence few (if any) commercial products exist. If you want something like this you will likely need to design and build it yourself, the problem then becomes "can you prove it will be reliable compared to existing proven UPS technology alternatives?".

What is the application? Are you just trying to obtain a low (or no) maintenance UPS for some remote sensor or datalogging application?

Please provide more information.

I am looking for a workable solution for poor people who live in farflung areas away from grid. They have abundant Solar and wind Energy.

1- One solution is to install large wind farms and Solar arrays and have local distribution system. this has disadvantage of having to establish a distribution network.

2- What I am considering is providing these villagers with small Solar panels or small wind turbines in phase-1 just to provide enough power for Two to Three fans and about half a dozen LED lights at night. This setup will be subsidized by government to make it affordale. Advantages are these systems do not require regular maintenance and provide power for basic needs.

3- We are also as a seperate solution plan to provide solar cookers.

Batteries are out of question as they have limited life of about 2 years.

In phase -11 we are cosidering community based water pumping and cold storage plants.

We are searching for a reliable energy storage which is equivalent to 200 AH 12 Volt battery ( Cost of this Battery is US$ 150 and rising).

SUn is shining for around 320 days out of a year.

This may not be a perfect solution . But to get these people some thing is better than getting them nothing

Now that I have explained may be together we can work out a solution

Best Regards

The only alternative to a battery as storage is a reservoir/ water tank filled via a pump (powered by excess wind and solar throughout the day) and a small hydro-electric unit to power loads at night. Of course, without batteries to ballast the dc currrent from both wind and hydro, I don't know how long the other equipment will hold up. As an installer of small-scale power systems (solar, wind, hydro) I have found batteries are the weak link, but, so far, I have found no practical alternative. I'll be following the discussion with interest.

This is completely different from your original question.

Off-grid solar and wind will not be viable alternatives without some means of energy storage during periods when the wind is not blowing hard enough (or is blowing too hard) and when the sun is not shining bright enough. The actual periods of time solar and wind effectively produce power is actually very small. Wind varies and solar doesn't work at night or when cloudy.

3- We are also as a seperate solution plan to provide solar cookers.

Also look into solar hot water heating (the radiant type, not solar panels creating electricity to elements to heat water), it is very efficient and low cost.

Compressed energy storage the equivalent of a 200AH 12V battery is going to be an engineering challenge unto itself (the energy density of compressed air is about half that of a battery, then you need a compressor, storage vessel, valves, etc). It is possible however and may be a viable method of off-grid energy storage for your application. Water reservoir (using wind turbines to pump water into a small lake on a hill and draining it thru a turbine to produce power on demand) may also be an option if the environment permits.

Have a look at the numerous threads on CR4 regarding the subject of solar, wind, energy storage, off-grid supply and third-world application as these have already been discussed in depth. Let us know if there is an area that hasn't been covered already that we can help with.

<...Any one can suggest a practical solution with approximate cost...>

This is a global Engineering forum. Evaluating <...cost...> involves handling commercially-sensitive information that is beyond the scope of a forum such as this. After all, there needs to be much more detail available to work it out, and that is the job of the Designer.

put the energy away in a torsion spring are a high presure gas cilinder

The only method that is in a piratical application, that does not use batteries is a Rotary (flywheel) UPS with a Generator providing the backup power.

If there is another method out there you should patent it before you tell anyone how to do it.

There will still be carbon produced as keeping a big flywheel turning for months/years? will use a lot of energy, probably electrical energy. Where does that usually come from? Fossil fuels of course.

I personally cannot believe that this flywheel solution will be economical in the slightest.....simply too expensive.....both to build and maintain.

A diesel generator at least uses no fuel till its started, batteries could provide the actual instant backup.....carbon footprint much smaller......one could even use Solar and wind energy to top the batteries up.......instead of the Diesel!!

I will be watching further......ready to learn, but I somehow doubt that I will need to!!

Actually it has been in production for over 15 years, the patent was owned by Caterpillar. Look it up.

What does it cost to buy and what does it cost to run (assuming no fallouts of the mains)?

I bet I can make a good (battery) system for the money and probably run it for 10 years or more....

The price is comparable to a battery UPS. The theory behind it is that the flywheel lasts long enough for the Generator to start up and take control of the power. The selling point is that there is no need to have a conditioned air storage space for batteries, there is are no battery failure (the number one cause of UPS failure) and the UPS does not need to be in a conditioned space (though it does need to be keep in a area that cleaned on a regular basis).

As far as the actual price, you would have to refer to the manufacturer.

Andy, in general comments on the CR4 board are constructive and folks are working toward creative solutions. You might want to consider whether your line of thinking and comments are truly in step with a creative brainstorming environment in which careful listening and no criticism of ideas is given. It is possible through constructive discussion as others do on this board to improve upon an idea without bashing it.

Bravo to everyone who is looking into new ways to store energy for back up electrical power.

Regarding fossil fuels, in March 2009 in Spain 40% of their electricity was generated by the wind. Portugal and some other countries are generating electricity using ocean waves. High altitude winds blow all the time over a large part of the earth's land mass. There are a half dozen groups going after this abundant resource which is available 24/7. Nuclear energy is non carbon producing and on the rise as well for electricity generation, though there are other reasons - waste and water, finite limit to the fuel as to why this won't be a long term solution.

If you haven't got the balls to be a member and sign on as such, you are outside of the equation....and not worth bothering with.....Your opinion is worth absolute zero as a guest to me....

May I suggest that you stand up on your hind legs, join CR4 and use your Moniker like a normal CR4 human being.....

I will not reply to any further guest comments as one cannot tell you apart.....you can argue further "amongst yourself" if you wish, as against we CR4 members, who argue "amongst ourselves"...a not so subtle difference......

Radioisotope thermoelectric generator.

You could use it as backup or just use it all the time and not worry about Uninteruptable Power Supplies and the their chemical batteries.

Try pebble-bed nuclear reactor.Inherently safe,modular construction, no giant water supply or cooling tower.Relatively cheap compared to conventional nuclear.Non polluting.No waste disposal problems.

Do your homework on this technology.

________________SSB__________________________________________________

This is unlikely to be a viable alternative for a 220V 1kVA UPS that would normally use a single 12V 7AH AGM sealed lead acid battery and cost as little as $50, that the original poster requested.

I totally agree.

Hi Andy, we could power that whole church using methane from the village compost and a thermoelectric generator.

Jon

220 V 50 Hz supply with 1KVA a little over 4.5Amps

Instead of a Radioisotope thermoelectric generator.

Use a natural gas thermoelectric generator. You can get gas more easily than radioisotopes and there is a company that makes natural gas thermoelectric generators. They claim they can run a house on some of them.

http://www.epower4.com/cplanguages.htm

This small one could heat a can of Chili and cool a can of coke (or beer) at the same time.

Nothing new here. The phone company ran their mountain repeaters on them using propane and thermopiles. Refueled and maintained them the every 6 months. (Spring and Fall)

Even the Soviet Russians had devices for running their radios back in 1959.

invested = invented

There are thirty cooling fins. The terminal plate has 5 terminals, duly numbered 1 to 5. That's presumably two isolated thermo-electric generator banks and a ground terminal. Most likely a filament supply and an 80 - 90 volt HT supply.

It could run on methane from compost.

Here is some technical stuff about the modern thermoelectric generator.

http://www.tellurex.com/12most2.html

Jon

Many good comments have been received. How ever main question remains still unsolved. What may be cheaper and reliable storage for energy other than batteries.

Animals on a turnstile generator. But they are not a quick response so there goes the interuption and reliability. You have to keep them moving, feed them and shovel their waste into a compost methane collector used to power your backup Thermo-electric generator. (You can burn some of the methane for brewing your tea.)

There is a cost for that too.

There are lots of backup electrical sources with fewer chemical concerns but they are blocked by the cost and security issues.

In some remote arctic Alaska locations diesel generators and wind turbines are used in concert. The wind doesn't blow all of the time.

Cost, cost, cost.........

Nothing free....No perpetual motion.

Jon

Many of the storage techniques mentioned above MAY be cheaper OR more reliable (ie- longer life) than existing battery storage technology but it will really depend on a number of variables such as local geology, weather, availability of parts and materials, etc.

In the end there can be no clear answer with so little information available. You may have some luck if someone here can find a link for you to a DIY compressed air storage (or similar) device that can be produced cheaply and reliably to remove the battery life issue, but this will create more reliability issues trying to reliably store and convert air movement into electricity (but it is possible).

Have you considered also supplying electrical products that DON'T require batteries such as LED torches you shake to recharge and lanterns, radios, etc that you wind a built-in handle to charge internal supercapacitors? (links to some of the vast number of no-battery wind up products below, also try a google search for many more or look in your local camping and electrical goods stores).

Before you ask, super-capacitor storage won't work for large scale electricity storage as their energy storage capacity is many times less than batteries and it would cost a fortune to create a 12V 200Ah. HOWEVER, small solar panels linked to supercapacitors are a viable alternative for LED lighting at night, and there are many products available that already do this

There is plenty of information on the web regarding the wide range of battery-less products with their own built-in power generation and storage systems that could be a viable low cost alternative to trying to build a small scale power grid for a remote village.

Hope this helps.

I see where lots of folks are missing one or more factors here.

Uninteruptable Power Supply

220 V 50 Hz 1 kilowatt

Continous for 2 to 4 hours at full rated load.

no chemicals

cheap

Not so easy to do.

Jon

See Post #23 where Azizsangi provided more information on his/her application and altered the original scope of this thread. It actually has nothing to do with a battery-less 1KW UPS originally stated in his/her first post, but rather an off-grid remote village power supply with 12V 200Ah battery-less energy storage for lights, water pumps and possible refrigeration.

Even less easy to do.

"12V 200Ah battery-less energy storage for lights, water pumps and possible refrigeration."

In a village.....

The automobile alternator is driven at 2 to 3 times the engine crankshaft speed.

A 14 volt 250 to 350 amp alternator like those used on vehicles with serious audio equipment, lights, refigerators and other cool stuff, could be used if a village had some way of turning it more than a couple thousand rpm with enough force to handle the load.

As mentioned before, a water turbine is a possibility. Due to the nature of the application (and load types), an animal-driven rotating platform with a highly-geared motor driving an alternator (with some form of speed control and voltage stabilization method) is not really any sort of viable option.

Note that neither of these are energy storage solutions, rather 24 hour power-on-demand (which is not what was asked for).

"with some form of speed control and voltage stabilization method" ?

No need for speed control and the regulator is built in.

Good old hydro-electric. My sister's creek dries in summer.

With a permanent and adequate flow and volume of water there is no problem.

The ox wheel is batteryless backup during maintenance.

Hello Jack of All Trades. Thankyou for your latest comment.

As regards LED lighting . Yes LED lighting holds much promise as it may be the most efficient light source given todays technology. The ULTRAHigh Capacity Capacitirs is another solution being further investigated. Problem is I have written to nearly all links provided during discussions. But Those guys are either too busy or not in active business yet.

But my search is continuing . When i find a solution Ill share it with all of you

If you are interested in incorporating commercially-available supercapacitors (also called Ultracapacitors) into your designs (or upgrading the small and cheap supercapacitors in existing products), look at companies such as "Maxwell Technologies".

http://www.maxwell.com/ultracapacitors/products/index.asp

They offer a wide range of solutions, and the BC series is the most cost-effective (and largest energy storage capacity based on cost) I have found to date (compared to other major Supercapacitor suppliers and brands including Epcos, MaxFarad, Elna, Powerstor and Cooper Bussmann).

Large scale storage with voltages above about 48V DC is unlikely to be viable, but for small products like LED lamps they are superior to your average Supercapacitor. Last time I checked (a few years ago) a Maxwell 350F 2.5V BC series Ultracapacitor cost around $16 US each, and was approximately 3 times cheaper (cost per farad) than the nearest rival product I could find (they have also been used in mobile short-term multi kV grid backup, but that application is outside the scope of your project due to the very high cost).

Nothing even approaches batteries for price, capacity and of course they are environmentally friendliness (lead acid batteries can be almost 100% recycled)...

What more do you want????

Quoting Wikipedia from:-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead-acid_battery#Environmental_concerns

"In the United States 97% of all battery lead was recycled between 1997 and 2001."

What exactly is your aversion to batteries? To look at other means of energy storage, one would require a better understanding of your resources available. Besides cost effective funding, what is the climate and topography like? What technical skills are available to install and maintain mechanical systems? The wreck Cove electrical project pumps water up a mountain to a lake which is then pumped to a second lake by means of a windmill. This is done during a period of low demand. At high demand the water generated power is added to the grid. A hundred years ago, lightkeepers had the hourly task of pulling up a large weight the entire height of the lighthouse. that would rotate the lantern through a clock mechanism. There are lots of ways to store energy, but there is no free lunch.

for 2–4 hours at kVA loads, you’ll practically need a chemical fuel source — batteries, diesel/generator, or fuel cell — because kinetic or capacitive systems (flywheels, supercaps) only cover seconds–minutes, not hours.

Thanks for information

While the primary focus here is on exploring alternatives to chemical batteries for UPS systems, it's interesting to consider how energy management principles can extend to personal health routines. For instance, a fasting app for men can be a valuable tool for those looking to manage their health and energy levels effectively. Such apps often provide features tailored to men's health needs, offering insights and tracking capabilities that support a balanced approach to wellness. By applying energy management concepts both in technology and personal health, we can achieve optimal performance in various aspects of life.