Happy Monday and welcome back to the Green New Spiel, the newsletter bringing you the latest stories and developments in the world of clean-tech, green energy and other climate related news.
We are back with some fascinating stories for you - as ever do let us know if there are topics you would like us to cover more of.
This week on the Green New Spiel:
🔋🥵 Unconventional battery tech - Rondo Energy tackling heavy industry
📆 Flying past the targets - China’s renewables rollout
💦⚡️Is Air-gen the Next-Gen technology? Recreating thunder and lightening
🧑⚖️ Ofgem hitting out at electricity generators
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🔋🥵 Unconventional battery tech
We all know that energy storage is important in order to address the intermittent nature of renewable energy. A type of storage which is getting more attention recently is heat batteries: we wrote about Polar Night Energy in the past and today we bring you Rondo Energy, who rather than using sand, they use a type of brick made out of silicon, aluminium and oxygen.
Backed by Energy Impact Partners and Breakthrough Ventures, Rondo use clean electricity to heat the bricks inside an insulated container to up to 1,500C, storing heat for days with very little energy loss (less than 1% per day). Rondo is looking to address the needs of companies which have pledged zero carbon emissions but that rely on high levels heat for their processes (think heavy industrials). Rondo is currently targeting locations where the cost of grid electricity or a renewable power purchase agreement plus a ‘Rondo unit’ will be lower than current fossil fuel heat sources.
📆 Flying past the targets
China is making strides as it looks to meet its 2030 energy targets five years ahead of schedule: the country is set to double its capacity and bring 1,200 gigawatts of solar and wind capacity online by 2025, according to Global Energy Monitor, a San Francisco-based NGO that tracks operating utility-scale wind and solar farms as well as future projects in the country. An even more phenomenal feat is that as of the first quarter of the year, China’s solar capacity reached 228 gigawatts, more than the rest of the world combined.
China’s impressive drive stems from its 2020 carbon goals in which they laid out their plan to hit net-zero by 2060. A key challenge remains though: their continuous hunger for coal. China relies on coal for more than half of its energy consumption and in Q1 2023 the government approved more coal than in the whole of 2021.
💦⚡️Is Air-gen the Next-Gen technology? Recreating thunder and lightening
Researchers from the University of Massachusetts Amherst have developed a technology called the Air-gen which can generate electricity from air humidity, replicating the electrical properties of storm clouds. The Air-gen works by utilizing microscopic holes through which water molecules pass, creating a charge imbalance and producing electricity.
Researchers have found that the device has the potential to be constructed from various materials, building on the researchers' earlier work with Geobacter, a microbe that generated electricity from moisture in the air but lacked scalability due its slow growth rate. The new Air-gen opens up possibilities for making clean energy more accessible worldwide.
🧑⚖️ Ofgem hitting out at electricity generators
The UK's energy regulator, Ofgem, is taking steps to prevent electricity generators from making unfair profits by introducing new license conditions. Ofgem launched a formal consultation after finding that some power companies have been unfairly profiting from the Balancing Mechanism, the country's supply and demand balancing system. The system is in place to ensure that the correct amount of electricity is purchased from generators to supply the grid.
It appears that some generators have been hoarding their electricity supply to sell it at higher prices during times of high demand. The exploitative practices obviously negatively impacted consumers and their energy prices. Ofgem, whose role is to regulate the market and protect consumers, is looking to implement the changes by this winter in order to minimise the impacts of what could be another challenging energy crunch.
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Ciao,
Carlo and Rob