Admittedly, current adoption of grid energy storage technologies is not only expensive; it faces multiple technical hurdles as well. However which of these hurdles will be overcome first? Moreover, what niche applications are currently economically viable, and which ones will become feasible in the future?

Upon the evaluation of various energy storage technologies, a general consensus reached is that in the next five to seven years,  lithium-ion batteries will play a central role in the future of electric energy storage systems. However, in light of cost, lithium-ion batteries will eventually lose out to cheaper alternatives such as flow and molten-salt batteries. Cost effectiveness serves to either propel the wide-scale application of a particular energy storage technology or act as a stumbling block that deters widespread adoption of the technology. This is particularly evident in Lux Research’s prediction that cheaper alternatives such as flow and molten-salt batteries will overtake lithium-ion batteries as a preferred energy storage solution, whereby rapidly evolving technologies with equivalent or superior performance metrics and substantially lower costs and higher resource availability will take over the majority of the grid storage market in the coming year. The delving deeper into the business case according to different applications by comparing different technologies such as Li-ion and Flow Batteries, Flywheel, Hydrogen and Supercapacitors will also be one aspect of this year’s Energy Storage Forum to be held on June 12-14 in Rome. The Forum seeks to encourage the achieving of a regulatory framework that will enable a profitable deployment of grid energy storage solutions. The discussion will also involve the close examination and comparison of the advantages and disadvantages of new alternative energy storage technologies.

Apart from economic variables, primary drivers responsible for expanding the reach of grid storage that have been identified include, ‘utility market structure, generation technology compositions, peak power demand, demand growth rate, infrastructure growth rate, penetration and growth rate of intermittent renewable energy sources, grid reliability, [time of use] electricity rates, commercial demand charges, and outage costs.’^[1]

Not surprisingly, factors such as grid stability and reliability along with the better use of energy resources, fossil fuels shortage, and limiting of greenhouse gases go hand in hand with the abovementioned variables in determining the widespread adoption of grid energy storage technology. The perennial debate over how best to proceed with the widespread integration of energy storage technology will be actively engaged in this year’s Energy Storage Forum as well.

The 5^th Energy Storage Forum Europe 2012 will be held in Rome from June 12-14, there will be 40 speakers from 16 countries focusing on the business case for grid storage across different applications. To find out more, please visit:

www.energystorageforum.com

Customers will be able to compare their gas and electricity use by the hour, day, week and year.  They will also be able to set their own energy targets and a traffic light system will warn households when they are using large amounts of electricity.

The new smart meters can be updated remotely with software upgrades.  The means that as technology evolves there will be no need to have the meters removed and refitted in the future making it hassle-free for households. The company has not been more specific as to how these updates will be performed at this time.

British Gas already has the largest number of smart meters in the UK with over 400,000 installed in homes and businesses so far.  The new next generation smart meter has a number of upgraded systems designed to help British Gas customers become the most informed and empowered energy users in the country.  Customers will receive their smart meter as part of a phased roll out across the country.

Dean Keeling, managing director of British Gas Smart Homes has said that, “We want people to understand the energy they use and make informed choices about when to use it and how to save it.  These new smart meters – the most advanced in the world to go into customers homes – will help customers do this. The British government has given the green light to the roll out of smart meters to every home and business in Britain.  This means that households will find it easier to cut their energy use and save money.”

By Adrian Bridgwater

Under the new initiative, brought about by a deal with the big six energy companies, households will receive a letter each year informing them of the best tariffs available. It will also give them the opportunity to switch to the cheaper rate if they choose to.

Danny Jatania, chairman and CEO of consumer champion and prepaid MasterCard®  provider Pockit (www.pockit.com), said, “This can only be good news for the many households across the UK that are struggling unnecessarily with high energy bills, many of whom are crippled by fuel poverty. The energy market is notoriously complicated, making it too difficult to track down the cheapest deals. Energy users are swamped by an endless amount of tariffs so even those who want to make comparisons are left with a difficult task.

“Although customers will be informed of lower tariffs, the energy prices themselves are not falling and that is what is concerning. We still need to address the underlying causes of high energy bills with more effective ways of subsiding power for the poorest families. “

Danny concluded, “Customers have long needed the tools to take control of the way they are paying for energy. As well as looking for lower rates, households should also proactively search for cashback deals and other incentives to avoid the pressures of rising costs. Smart meters should also be combined with energy efficiency measures such as roof insulation and cavity wall insulation to reduce costs. Quite often, more attractive deals can be discovered by looking outside of the ‘big six’ energy companies so smaller companies should be factored into any search as well.”

By Adrian Bridgwater

LoPro10 is a cement based floating floor with a height build up of just 15mm and excellent thermal properties that can be fitted on top of the existing floor deck, making it ideal for retrofit projects as well as new-build.

Nu-Heat is committed to ensuring that all of its products have optimum performance. LoPro10’s low thermal resistance properties allow a high thermal output compared to floating floors under 18mm chipboard, where the heat output is far lower. LoPro10 also has one-third less thermal mass than a screed floor, allowing it to heat up rapidly.

The high thermal output also makes it an ideal partner for heat pump installations, especially in retrofit projects where a low-temperature heating system is needed to optimise heat pump performance but good heat transfer is needed to maintain comfortable room temperatures.

To meet robust acoustic criteria, the new floor construction provides airborne acoustic reduction on timber upper floors by adding mass. The added benefit being that, unlike many lightweight, floating floors, it feels solid underfoot.

Nu-Heat has carefully designed the product in order to make it easy to install. 10mm ultra-flexible PEX-c pipework can be easily laid in the grooved panels in lengths of up to 60m. Unique Fastrack™ clips enable pipework to be closely laid up to 10 abreast allowing easy run back to the manifold, something that most floating UFH systems fail to achieve. Tiles can be laid directly on to the dense rigid gypsum board with no requirement for a ply layer, making it quick to install.

With a height of just 15mm, LoPro10™ is perfect for retrofitting into existing properties, where most will be able to accommodate the additional build-up with minimal adjustment to fittings.

LoPro10™ can also be overlaid with 4-6mm plywood for direct carpeting and other floor coverings such as laminates, natural timber and engineered floors can be ‘floated’ directly over the panel without the need for battening.

By Adrian Bridgwater

The National Heat Map is a publicly accessible resource providing high-resolution maps of heat demand across England.

It aims to help local authorities, community groups and other users identify locations where heat distribution projects are most likely to make a difference – by cutting carbon emissions and reducing heating costs.

The heat map is based on modeled estimates of annual heat demand at every address in England, and is extremely detailed as a result.

This detail allows users to investigate energy use patterns at the level of individual buildings and streets: exactly what’s needed to support the development of local, low-carbon decentralised energy projects across the country.

Once a potential opportunity has been identified using the heat map, the next step is to approach local stakeholders to develop interest in the project, and to obtain directly metered heat demand data for use in a feasibility study.

Cloud provider Memset has announced they are providing the cloud services running the newly launched web application. Kate Craig-Wood, MD of Memset said: “It’s really exciting to see our technology being used for such a great environmental purpose, especially when CSE is using technology in an environmentally friendly way as well – delivering the content via the cloud means the service itself has a reduced carbon footprint compared to the old-school approach of dedicated hardware.”

CSE’s Head of Research and Analysis, Joshua Thumim said: “The National Heat Map represents a big step forward in the use of the web to provide intelligence and support for the development of local energy projects. It combines a very detailed geographic model of energy use with a range of user-friendly visualisation and reporting tools, providing sophisticated GIS functionality to non-technical users via a standard web-browser. We think it’s the future of energy mapping.”

The National Heat Map can be accessed at ceo.decc.gov.uk/nationalheatmap and requires Internet Explorer 7 or higher. Firefox, Chrome or Safari are recommended.

By Adrian Bridgwater

For over a decade now we have been working to operate as the first open source analyst company. “Content wants to be free, so ours mostly is,” says co-founder James Governor. “We seek to champion social change through social media for better environmental outcomes.”

Among the wide scope of sustainability issues falling under its view, GreenMonk focuses on areas such as energy demand management (working on the demand side of the equation using sophisticated IT marshaling techniques) — the team’s analysts also publish analysis on power networks and a range of related topics in the Green IT and Energy Efficient Data Centre space.

“We want to help vendors market more effectively, we want to help enterprises to save money and build better alignment between management, business and staff. Added to these core goals, we want to make individuals feel they can make a contribution to the huge challenges we all face,” said Governor.

As Marks and Spencer says: This is Plan A, Because there is No Plan B.

In its technology industry work to data, RedMonk has been singled out for an enviable track record of calling trends early. From marketing advisory to community and product development consulting, Governor’s background is in research and journalism.

Governor is joined in his eco-quest by Tom Raftery — a communicator, blogger, podcaster and social media consultant who himself co-founded the Cork Internet eXchange, a hyper energy-efficient data center.

By Adrian Bridgwater

Leading figures from The Co-operative; the National Trust; The National Federation of Women’s Institutes; the Church of England and Campaign to Protect Rural England has met Chris Huhne, Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, to launch their joint ‘vision for community energy’, which supports dramatically scaling up the number of community owned renewable energy projects across the country, and to discuss how the Government can best assist.

The National Trust has been working on its low carbon villages (LCV) project which aims to tackle the disillusionment and helplessness that many people feel about climate change in two Trust owned villages, Coleshill in Oxfordshire, and Cambo on the Trust’s estate at Wallington, Northumberland.

Through a process of engagement over a three-year period, LCV aimed to develop positive and practical solutions that could set villagers on a journey to low-carbon living. The energy projects the charity has undertaken across all of its places as part of its commitment to generating half of the UK’s energy from renewable energy sources by 2020 can be seen on the National Trust energy map, found on the charity’s site.

Patrick Begg, Director of Rural Enterprise at The National Trust, commented: “Many other European countries are way ahead of the UK, as we found out when visiting German communities last year. Germany produces over 20 per cent of its electricity from renewable sources, with communities generating about a quarter of this. In the UK, less than 1 per cent is generated by our communities, a figure this coalition wants to dramatically increase by 2020. We are asking the Government to support us in this.”

Paul Monaghan, Head of Social Goals at The Co-operative, said: “We want nothing less than a clean energy revolution, with communities controlling and benefiting from their own renewable energy. Talk of a new dash for gas shales, which could see up to 3,000 wells installed across the UK, highlights the choices we face – more and dirtier sources of fossil fuels or clean energy owned and controlled by communities.”

In the coming months and years, the coalition, who were brought together by The Co-operative and its partners, sustainable development organisations Forum for the Future and Carbon Leapfrog, collectively plan to meet at regular intervals to make practical steps to drive the shared vision forwards and champion community energy among their members. Late last year coalition representatives visited Germany to see examples of other successful community schemes.

By Adrian Bridgwater

Technology giant Microsoft has announced that it is committing to CarbonSystems’ Environmental Sustainability Platform (ESP) Cloud service as its new global standard for management of all its energy, efficiency and environmental-performance reporting requirements.

The system will be used right across the firm’s entire global operations, which comprise over 600 facilities in 110 countries.

According to the software leader, adopting CarbonSystems’ ESP application matched its goal of leveraging technology to reduce its energy use profile by harnessing data to make more informed decisions about the company’s resource use, based on deeper data.

Deployment of CarbonSystems will also allow tracking of key environmental indicators and performance across the Windows supplier’s portfolio of real estate and data centre assets. This will enable, say its leaders, Microsoft to accurately assess the impact, payback period and return on investment of any and all efficiency initiatives in the built environment.

According to Microsoft – which has reiterated that it’s committed to measuring, transparently reporting, and minimising the carbon footprint of its global operations – CarbonSystems’ ESP will “enable us to efficiently collect, analyse and share environmental data, delivering new levels of understanding about the resources we use”.

That means it will be key to their achieving business and environmental sustainability goals.

Analyst firm Verdantix says Microsoft’s adoption of a single software platform to manage its sustainability performance underscores a global trend to standardise the capture and management of disparate nonfinancial data such as energy, emissions, and other environmental metrics.

Its CEO, David Metcalfe, notes that, “Many organisations struggle to capture and integrate sustainability data sourced from different localities as they strive for a single version of the truth.

“By adopting the CarbonSystems’ solution, Microsoft will have one platform for managing and reporting non-financial sustainability.”

More at www.globalcarbonsystems.com

By Adrian Bridgwater

BBC news has reported that public buildings in the Scottish Orkney Islands group have installed ground source heat pump technology with a view to cutting carbon emissions by 30%.

Work reportedly already under way to appoint ground source heat pumps at Orkney’s four newest public buildings.

According to the BBC, “The technology harnesses the temperature difference underground to create heat. It is being used at the new Kirkwall Grammar School, Stromness Primary school, Papdale Halls, and the new developments at the Pickaquoy Centre.”

Sources suggest that this is understood to be the biggest geothermal project of its kind in Scotland. Geothermal International is carrying out the work itself; the firm has UK headquarters in Coventry and Scotland as well as the Americas.

The work at Kirkwall Grammar School is set to take about three months.

New research from business-to-business energy supplier, Opus Energy, suggests a growing level of interest among small to medium enterprises (SMEs) in generating renewable energy from their own businesses, with one third (32%) expecting to introduce solar panels, wind turbines, ground source heating solutions or anaerobic digestion for example. A total of 38% expect to be generating their own renewable energy within five years.

Despite recent cuts in energy tariffs, and perhaps faced with finding new ways to generate income (42% highlight the revenue opportunity behind any decision), although a large number of SME business leaders questioned in the survey expect to be generating renewable energy within the next five years, younger business owners (aged 18-34) say they are even more likely to make the investment sooner.

Opus Energy recently launched its power purchase agreement which enables customers to generate additional income from renewable energy, whilst powering their businesses and reducing their carbon footprint. The survey highlighted that most SMEs (59%) felt they would definitely be interested in generating their own power if the Government provided subsidies.

The research also found that 42% of SMEs said they would switch to generating some or all of their own power from renewables if it could be proven that they would make money out of it.

Charlie Crossley Cooke, Managing Director, Opus Energy, added: “There’s real dynamism in the SME sector from people who are genuine entrepreneurs and we expect to see more examples of SMEs powering other businesses as well as their own. Opus Energy encourages businesses to take full advantage of the subsidies available and start generating their own renewable energy. It’s an investment in their business’ future: a way to reducing overheads and to make savings on their energy costs.

“With so much talk around the consumer energy sector, we need to be championing the cause for business. The small to medium size business sector has been coined by governments as a backbone for economic recovery, but so far we are not seeing the support required to help business owners get to grips with energy costs and innovative solutions such as renewables.”

Opus Energy renewables video from VisualMedia on Vimeo.