Will a Flow Battery Power Your Home Soon?

It sounds good, and I hate to have to bring up the government on the very first post, _{(not really)}, but why is it, that whenever we hear about some wonderful new technology, (particularly when it's government funded), it always involves keeping all of us tied to "the grid", as opposed to thinking smaller, and enabling us to get off "the grid"?

Millions of people would like to have wind or solar, along with cool storage capacity, right in their back yards or on their roofs.

basically that's exactly why I titled it as I did.

Always with the negative waves..................................

But, grid or no grid, let's give it 10 years to develop. The return on investment will determine the fate of the invention. If it takes too long, well...................

A horse trailer sized unit on top of the solar panels looks like $50-100,000.00 USD for a commercial building. And that building still has to be hooked to the grid, and wired inside.

A 40,000 Sq.Ft. commercial building in my fair city will cost that much to design and permit, not including a like amount to install the copper.

I just got one re-wired after all the copper was pulled out by thieves. There was a MILE of copper wire in the building. Some of it as big as your uh........thumb. The wire cost $30,000.00 USD + installation.

More than you wanted to hear.

the thieves will be back the next time they need a grand for drugs

They took the realtor's lock box off the front door and came back two weeks later. Nobody knew they had been there until the fire alarm battery ran down two days later.

They were pros. Other wise, they would have killed themselves. They had mechanical pullers and trucks inside the building. Tire prints everywhere.

The building is occupied now, and there are alarms and cameras everywhere.

Well maybe you should have gone with copper clad aluminum wiring....lol

Let's just hope that they don't allow Obama to invest in them with our tax dollars, or they will die a terrible, though very quick death!

Obama is batting a thousand in killing alternative energy companies by "investing in them", and an article I read over a year ago said that he has thrown away over 300 billion of our tax dollars on companies, which subsequently fall like a felled tree! It is almost as if 'that' was his intent!

True, but I don't have a problem with government funding of research.

Government should never be involved in the building of companies, with taxpayer money....which means ever.

Those companies were never intended to actually produce a product, again like a magician, don't look at the right hand, watch the left.... this was only intended to be a means of converting campaign contributions into huge government handouts. In other words a money laundering scheme. campaign contibutors buy some down on their luck alternative energy company, they donate relatively large sums of cash to the campaign, then when elected he returns all that money and then some in the form of DoE grants back to those same contributors who take the money and run, leaving the original pie in the sky inventor wondering what the hell happened.

Taxes

I'm not sure which one takes priority... the guaranteed tax revenue, or the utter control that comes with keeping us tethered to the grid.

How quickly some of us forget.

I would have liked to have taken part in saving the planet, by buying a few inexpensive solar panels; but I guess saving a dying planet just isn't as important as we're led to believe. Morons.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2013/02/05/obama-administration-errors-set-the-stage-for-the-first-green-trade-war/

You can still have a chance to get solar cells at a pretty cheap price....if you can handle things like soldering and encapsulation.

10KW <$1000

Solyndra stuff?

No! Those are solar cell, not federal refund for campaign contributions vouchers!

.

In actuality, I don know. If it is, how would that affect your decision?

It wouldn't.

In the winter, (Oct - May), my electric costs about $60 per month max. Between the solar panels and all of the other stuff I would need, I can't justify it.

But I do dream of living completely independently of the grid...the motivation is more based on the feeling of freedom, rather than cost savings. I just don't like depending on other people/entities.

"I just don't like depending on other people/entities."

Yeah, especially when they may not pony up with the $60 worth of power you did need!

this may just do that. distribute charged dielectric like coke. fill and use it. very nice idea indeed.

I love the idea of microturbines. It wouldn't take much to run, or substantially supplement the typical home. Combined with kits to convert grass clippings, or even human waste into fuel, and I think they could be a winner.

I've seen lots of ideas that could be scaled down and mass produced for home use, that, combined, could drastically reduce US energy usage, (from the grid).

There's not even a reason for the government to be scared to let it happen; the excess capacity of the grid, could be used to ramp up manufacturing.

Nice report. Thank you for sharing.

The company I was doing the work for never really intended for it to work. They knew from the outset it was never going to work, but it was a means to obtain DoE grants. Anyone who thinks these alternative energy companies are healthy and on the up and up has never seen it from the soft pink underbelly. the sausage making process is not for the squeamish. the whole thing is rife with corruption, self-dealing, and political payoffs. THIS is why the government should not be at all involved with this stuff, government money breeds corruption.

Thankyou. Some well made points.

This was a reference to SANYO's JV on fuel cells and what they were proposing around 12 years ago.

Pardon me if someone already mentioned this but there is one easily overlooked advantage to a large central source of power generation. To make this more clear, consider the case where everyone has their own power generator. In order to prevent brown-outs, everyone must produce a little more power than they actually need. And to save energy, or gasoline, or whatever, they turn off all unnecessary loads. That means that a lot of capacity and consequently a lot of energy is being wasted by each individual.

When thousands of people are on the same source of energy from a much larger generator, they don't worry about turning off every light that isn't being used. The larger generator does not respond as much (percentage wise) as a smaller generator would when a given load is changed. Consequently the larger generator does not consume or waste a lot of fuel just creating a little bit of margin to prevent brown-out. But if you add up all of the individual smaller generator margins, you will quickly realize the folly of everybody using their own generators.

That being said, there are always exceptions to this grand scheme. This is somewhat analogous to buying insurance rather than being self insured. It is also analogous to taking the bus or train as opposed to everyone driving a car.

That's true, it's not for everyone, but even breaking up our huge power generation/ distribution networks into smaller ones, makes sense...if for no other reason, but from a national security standpoint. It would be impossible for terrorists to knock out power to millions, and would limit any damage from attack. Plus the advantages of not having to transport power over vast distances.

Who needs a terrorist to knock out the eastern seaboard? We seem to be able to do that quite well ourselves. You make a very good point!

Soon....? Afaict we will also need DC designs for home appliances, and an industry to supply them, to really move the market to DC and local generation capacity. Until then we'll (mostly) be stuck on the grid.

Here's one feasibility study:

http://publications.lib.chalmers.se/records/fulltext/152472.pdf

DC? really? we are back to that ancient technology? the power losses would be astronomical.

power losses? over what distances are you talking about?if you had a battery storage system in your home and it was centrally located there is very little loss. DC is ancient? your cell phone is DC your PC OR tablet is DC, are those ancient too?

I'm talking about DC distribution. tried and failed in the early 1900's. Edison was adamant that power be distributed via DC. It was Nikolai Tesla and George Westinghouse that proved Polyphase AC to be superior. DC required generators practically every block and the I2R losses were spectacular.

That's true. But if someone was starting from scratch, and going solar or wind, I think the investment in DC appliances would be worth it.

There are plenty of DC appliances, and just about everything else.

I went down to Vieques, PR one year for vacation, and the "off grid" people preferred DC systems for the whole house.

I think, he's refering to long distance transmission......if he was or he's mixing the two thoughts, AC is far better for transmission. but in a home system he'd lose even more inverting the DC produced by solar and wind to AC

This is why Kram is right, the efficient flow battery would make this a great choice for people starting from scratch.

For those who already have AC homes, the desire to get off the grid would have to be strong to take on the costs involved in making it efficient. Replacing appliances is not cheap... I'm not an electrician but common sense tells me some rewiring would be required as well.

For the power companies there's nothing to be gained, obviously, and everything to lose if there is a major move of clients to off grid systems... Makers of AC home appliances would also stand to lose, unless the same companies are also producers of DC product.

I'm sure there will always be a market for AC generation, but if private homes were mostly off grid it would sure be a smaller market.

Hard to tell.

I think the utility companies would still have plenty of business in cities and highly populated areas. They might just end up welcoming an off grid movement; they've been kicking the "infrastructure" can, down the road for decades.

Now would be the time to make the move...none of them want to spend the billions that it will cost to upgrade and replace the existing grid.

Boy is that ever true where I'm living! Off grid DC never looked so good as when they go to rolling blackouts because of under capacity in the coldest and stormiest weather ever...

Our government has a big hydro project planned, though, so I don't say they would welcome any major movement off grid. The old infrastructure has to be replaced, we can only hope that the replacement timing is not too far out of sync with the new hydro to pay for it.

We had a lot of power outages during the cold snap also, which is a really scary sign.

It was just due to usage, not storms, and we are systematically shutting down our nuke and coal plants, with no replacements.

I really have no idea how our government plans on, (having the private sector), ramping up manufacturing and creating jobs, when we don't have the capacity for people to turn up their thermostats in cold weather.

Yes, but DC doesn't kill elephants.

don't say that. DC can evaporate an elephant if charge is lightening size.

Fred has only disclosed gov project which may be our future so just appreciate him.

Elephants never forget.

(well, actually the electrocuted ones might)

Cool article, thanks for posting it.

Combine this with Bloom Energy's dream of a refrigerator sized fuel cell in our houses, the entire concept of de-centralized energy production seems like a slightly less distant reality here.

One thing in that article that caught my eye, and is likely the tiny little snake in the grass, was this statement.

"Quinones are abundant in crude oil as well as in green plants. The molecule that the Harvard team used in its first quinone-based flow battery is almost identical to one found in rhubarb."

Drop the bomb, then move on quickly before anyone notices...

I'd wager that before too long, the Petro-Oligarchs will lock it up and insist that THEIR quinones are the only ones that will work, or will be cheap enough, because the rhubarb ones will be found to have some sort of fatal flaw.

The quinones used in the flow battery weren't extracted from rhubarb, they just happen to be similar or based on that molecule. The article in Nature pointed out that by tweaking the molecule - hydroxylating, specifically - they improved performance by 11%.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v505/n7482/full/nature12909.html

I think when people consider alternative energies such as solar and wind they just skip over the storage aspect needed to really take advantage of these sources. currently it's always one form or another of good old lead/acid. yes they can work but their inherent cycle life can bust a budget if the batteries aren't treated like babies. flow batteries certainly aren't new but if they were made inexpensively (as the article promises) I can see potential for greater acceptance. I'm keeping an open mind

When I'm thinking about alternative energies, storage is the only thing I think about. I keep waiting for some geniuses to come up with something that revolutionizes energy storage.

Then we can look seriously at changing our energy mix on a global scale.

Water pumping to a height and a micro-hydro unit can be a low cost energy storage and harvesting system with the added bonus of water storage.

Looking back to past farming practices, these families were almost completely 'off grid' and still the farms were cropped and the families enjoyed cooked meals. Today's technology in its many forms could enhance these activities ... and be scaled to suit urban living.

To: everyone

I found, in the public library and read a very interesting book about the "war" between Thomas Edison (for DC power) and Nicoli Tesla (for AC power). It highlights the issues brought up here and perhaps even more.

It seems to me that well over half of the products in the average home use some sort of DC power supply, derived from the AC power line. So, why don't we have an alternate DC power feed and bypass the AC altogether? Well, certain types of camping gear already has that... And, there seems to be no rush to standardize the needed DC voltage for most appliances. But wouldn't it be a good idea to entertain a standard for some things? Just thinking out loud.

12Vdc seems to be a pretty widespread standard because much of it was designed to work in either automobiles or RV's. the problem is stepping 12VDC up or down to the voltage needed by things that can't work from 12V. That is what makes AC so useful as a distribution methodology. All it takes a transformer. Local DC distribution takes a DC input Buck/boost switchmode power supplies to do that. Those things are pretty inefficient because they first have to convert the incoming power to AC (usually 40khz or more so the iron core losses are low.) then feed that to a standard switchmode topology to end in the voltage needed. The most efficient ones I've yet seen are about 80% efficient. I've heard claims of 90% for some topologies (diodeless ones), but i've yet to see one in real life. Most are around 70-75% or so.

It seems like DC to DC converters are fairly popular for doing pretty much the same thing. The DC to DC converters take something like 3 to 9 VDC or 10 to 30 VDC and provide a consistent output. It can be a handy way to achieve good voltage regulation (at the output) when the input is declining like my batteries always do.

I have heard claims of 95% efficiencies for these devices. But I can't help but wonder if the efficiency changes under varying load conditions (i.e. laptop computer). So, let the buyer beware, some of the published claims may be for ideal conditions. Somehow, I can never achieve ideal conditions......

By combining multiple DC sources, a modified form of AC output can be produced, without the DC/AC conversion losses and electromagnetic noise. Multiple flow batteries could be so used.

As for voltages, I grew up in a 32v DC world of passenger train lighting systems and the local government that ran a 32v DC power generation station. On the gold mine lease that I lived on, it had a 40cycle 240v system, which required the change of domestic applicances like washing machines and other white goods to align with the consumer world convenience present in the adjoining community.

'...By combining multiple DC sources, a modified form of AC output can be produced, without the DC/AC conversion losses and electromagnetic noise....'

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Lossless conversion process that is also inherently electromagnetically quiet! You should get a jump start on spending the money you are going to make, otherwise it will surely overwhelm you.

I'm in an area where the power iz very unreliable. Recently it went out wen I wuz in the middle uv a project on my computer, so I hooked it up to an 12vdc to 120ac inverter 0n a car battery and worked for about 4 hourz till the power came back on.

I have a generator also, but it woudnt start kuz I let it sit too long. Even Stabil haz a limit.

If the power seems unreliable because it is not quickly turned back on from an outage, perhaps the power company is unable to understand you or they aren't taking you seriously when you call in the outage.....?

.

Just wanted to bring that possibility to your attention if it hadn't already been considered.

I'm not the only wun in this area, so I usually am not the 1st to call it in.

And explain why you think they woudnt understand me.

It is only fair to ask why I suggest a possibility could be that they might not understand you....

...

...itz onlE bkuz u might spæk th3 wá u type.

Seriously, truth is not comprimise?

Certainly If I spoke the way I usually type here, nobody woud understand much uv it. But they woud understand more than if you spoke the way you type.

NoW, IF i SPOK XU WA iM TiPING NoW, IT WuD SoWND KUMPLETLE NORML.

I gess you havent noticed that English spelling duznt match the pronunciation.

No, not seriously Z man. Not is a serious tone, but with emphasis none the less. I told you in a silly non-serious way, so that we could laugh about it. So laugh about the comment, but don't laugh about the idea.

Dude, Learn freakin english is what He's trying to tell you.

very annoying text, are you 12?