Energy Storage — GigaOM

Energy Storage

Investors loved the wind energy sector, and they showed it by blowing the most investment dollars that way in 2010. They also were most busy with energy efficiency deals, the number of which surpassed other cleantech categories last year, according to a U.S. market report by … Read More »

GM and LG Chem Turn to Argonne Lab for Battery Tech

GM and LG Chem are licensing a broad suite of patents from Argonne National Laboratory to develop lithium-ion battery cells and packs for next-generation electric cars. LG Chem will use the IP to make cells in Michigan starting next year. Read More »

 
 

Holy Molycorp: Stock Soaring

On the back of a series of positive news for recently-public rare earth mining company Molycorp, the Colorado-based company’s stock is soaring at above $50 per share this morning. That’s waaay up from its New York Stock Exchange debut price of $13.25 in July. Read More »

Lithium-ion battery startup ActaCell, which has already raised funds from such high profile groups as Google.org, DFJ Mercury and Applied Ventures (Applied Materials venture arm), is out touting over $3 million in newly acquired financing this morning. Read More »

A new $3 million NIST award could offer a significant boost for Austin, Tex.-based ActaCell, whose backers include Google.org, DFJ Mercury and Applied Ventures. The startup aims to scale up production of its novel nanocomposite material for lithium battery anodes by a factor of 1,000. Read More »

The Energy Storage Story

The key to getting utilities to embrace renewable energy is investment in inexpensive, convenient, and highly efficient utility-scale storage for solar and wind power. The issue remains one of supply and demand: Supply the energy storage solutions without demanding too much of anyone. Read More »

ETV Motors Shifts Gears, Drops Microturbine Dream

Executives from startup ETV Motors tell us, in an exclusive interview, how they’re shifting gears and divesting from the turbine business to focus on high-voltage, energy-dense battery cells for aviation, electric bikes and eventually plug-in cars. Read More »

Contour’s New Battery Niche: 3D TV Glasses

Contour Energy Systems has launched an opportunistic attack on a niche consumer market right in time for Christmas. The Caltech battery spinout formerly known as CFX Battery announced a line of disposable coin cell batteries specifically engineered to make 3-D TV glasses last longer than competitors. Read More »

One of China’s largest automakers has tapped A123 Systems to supply lithium-ion batteries for an electric car slated to roll out in 2012. The deal was a silver lining to the disappointing earnings it reported yesterday for the three months ending September 30. Read More »

Tesla Motors has just picked up a $30 million investment from Japanese electronics giant Panasonic. The two companies announced on Wednesday that Panasonic — a preferred battery cell supplier for Tesla’s electric vehicles — has bought a $30 million stake in the Palo Alto, Calif. car … Read More »

Ener1 has a $40 million deal to supply Russia’s Federal Grid Company (FGC) with batteries to back up the grid for the 2014 Winter Olympics. Read More »

Ice is nice, but so is cash. The startup that builds an ice-based energy storage and air conditioning system for buildings — Ice Energy — announced this morning that it has raised a $24 million Series C round of funding. Read More »

More Must Reads

Today, Motorola filed suit regarding three complaints against Apple over patent infringements. The complaints deal with antenna design and other associated smartphone technologies covered in 18 patents held by Motorola. But that’s only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Apple’s legal problems. Read More »

If you want to find a Moore’s Law type improvement for batteries, “you’ve got to go to an asteroid and come back with some new materials,” says Quallion President Paul Beach. Read More »

Among the 2.6 billion people in the world that don’t have regular access to grid power, an economy has emerged around junky car batteries. But the young, ambitious crew from the newly emerged startup Fenix International, thought to themselves, there has to be a better way. Read More »

The green car battery recycling bandwagon just got a bit more crowded. General Motors and Swiss grid giant ABB announced that the two companies will jointly research ways to reuse old batteries from GM’s Chevy Volt hybrid for storing power on the grid. Read More »

Battery startup Contour Energy Systems says it has developed a new battery technology based on the volatile material fluorine, which can deliver longer lasting, higher power batteries for devices spanning from smart meters to pacemakers, and — potentially years down the road — electric vehicles and … Read More »

Here’s a yin and yang combo: power a building with the sun and store the energy overnight with ice. Solar panel maker Sunpower and Ice Energy announced on Thursday that they’ve teamed up to build a pilot project combining their technologies. Read More »

Pike Research says that the global market for energy storage will be $35 billion by 2020. That’s about the estimated market cap of Facebook if it goes public next year. Where’s Moore’s Law when we need it? Read More »

For most YouTubers, the almighty viewcount reigns supreme — if your video doesn’t break five figures, it doesn’t matter how good it is. It’s an interesting yet at times exhausting attitude — which is possibly why the 0Views blog is so refreshing an experience. Read More »

My insight into Twitter etiquette isn’t anything earth-shattering, but as the 140-character microblogging platform has become a daily tool for just about all of us, we’ve developed a loose set of norms when it comes to how we conduct ourselves on the service. Read More »

Utilities know they have to figure out how to store energy produced intermittently, such as wind and solar, or store energy from fossil-fuel power plants to keep the grid loaded when wind turbines and solar energy equipment aren’t doing their best. Read More »

While Rapid Electric Vehicles (REV) has been quietly deploying what could be the largest vehicle-to-grid project in the world, on Tuesday, the startup detailed a partnership with the Army to provide all-electric networked cars for its micro grid research project at Wheeler Air Base, Hawaii. Read More »

While Zenn Motor came to the end of its life as an electric car maker four months ago, there’s still no word on progress from Zenn’s controversial partner — on which it bet the farm — EEStor. In fact Zenn seems to be distancing itself. Read More »

Through a partnership with Japan’s conglomerate Itochu, EnerDel, is a subsidiary of Ener1, is the exclusive battery supplier for Think City electric vehicles, and has been building a battery factory in Indiana with the help of funds from the U.S. Department of Energy. Read More »

Thin film battery startup Infinite Power Solutions says it has closed a $20 million round and brought in Al Gore’s firm Generation Investment Management to help ramp up production of its tiny, flat batteries for sensors, medical devices and gadgets. Read More »

Last week battery maker A123 Systems quietly unveiled that it had spun out an energy storage venture called 24M Technologies that would raise outside funding. This morning 24M details those backers: $10 million from Charles River Ventures and North Bridge Venture Partners, and $6 million from … Read More »

Battery guru Venkat Srinivasan takes a look at the technology that he thinks is at the heart of Apple’s recent announcement that it has developed and is selling a battery charger with six Apple-optimized nickel metal hydride (Ni-MH) reusable batteries — a seperator. Read More »

EnerG2, a company working on synthetic carbon materials for energy storage devices, hit pay dirt last summer with the award of a stimulus grant under a DOE program. Today, in Albany, Ore., the startup at last kicked off construction of the factory made possible by that … Read More »

And the DOE loan guarantee train keeps on chugging. This morning the DOE says it has offered its 14th loan guarantee — a $17.1 million conditional commitment to AES to build a 20 MW energy storage system using A123System’s lithium ion batteries. Read More »

Panasonic Corp. plans to spend up to about $9.5 billion buying out two of its subsidiaries in an effort to go greener, faster. The company announced today that it aims to take total control of Sanyo and Panasonic Electric Works. Read More »

Turning battery breakthroughs into a sustainable business means requires a team to find the “killer application” for their particular technology, and figure out who’s willing to pay for it, says Maurice Gunderson, a senior partner for CMEA Capital’s Energy and Materials group. Read More »

With stimulus grant and federal loan winners under the gun to meet ambitious timelines tied to their funds and a new generation of battery electric vehicles poised to launch within a matter of months, we’ve updated our U.S. battery build-out map. Read More »

DRM has a new name, and that name is “UltraViolet.” The Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem today announced the name for its “Buy Once, Play Anywhere” digital content framework, along with a consumer website in which consumers will be able to manage all their content and devices. Read More »

Compact Power, a Michigan subsidiary of South Korea’s LG Chem, is starting to look like the player to beat in the competition to supply lithium-ion cells and battery packs for electric vehicles, having bagged deals with General Motors, Eaton and Ford. Read More »

The Obama administration has kicked off its electric car and battery offensive with a report laying out the facts and figures for its investments in advanced vehicles and batteries so far under the Recovery Act. Here’s the digit-by-digit highlights. Read More »

President Obama’s visit to Smith Electric Vehicles in Kansas City, Mo. last week was just a warm-up for what’s shaping up to be a full-on electric car and battery offensive by the White House this week. Read More »

Today the DOE has awarded $92 million for 43 new projects under the highly competitive ARPA-E program for high risk greentech research, marking the last of the ARPA-E grants to be funded under the Recovery Act. Read More »

Many of the best practices for keeping lithium-ion batteries healthy and happy for longer in electronic devices, like laptops, can also apply to their super-sized and fast-approaching cousins: electric cars. But with cars there’s a whole lot more at stake. Read More »

Motiv Power Systems aims to break into the nascent market for electric trucks and buses through the back door of the diesel truck market, providing a mix-and-match library of batteries and motors, and the electrical and communication system to tie it all together. Read More »

Toshiba and Mitsubishi Motors have teamed up to work on battery systems for electric cars, the laptop and electronics giant announced on Friday. But if everyone needs multiple sources, then Toshiba is hardly a shoe-in for a contract to supply Mitsubishi with the battery systems. Read More »

Is this the beginning of a trajectory for Tesla’s stock that will echo battery maker A123 Systems’ slide from levels above $20 after going public in September, to around $9 today? Read More »

Today on the Net: Apple is moving its iTunes music and movie service into the cloud, about a third of US residents watched the World Cup, according to Nielsen, and TiVo will supply software and services to power a next-generation TV initiative at ONO in Spain. Read More »

In a new supply deal between energy behemoth ConocoPhillips and A123 Systems, whose batteries are slated to power upcoming plug-in vehicles from Fisker Automotive and Chrysler, Big Oil meets little lithium-ion. Read More »

The new iPhone 4 does away with the ‘hold’ button during a call, but what if you want to put your caller on hold? Don’t worry, you still can. Read More »

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