Batteries

Electro Energy Inc (EEEI) announced the delivery of a Bipolar Battery System to the U.S. Army Communications and Electronics Command (CECOM), to be tested and demonstrated under the Silent Watch Program. The EEEI bipolar battery system was built under the Company's contract with the U.S. Army Manufacturing Technology (Mantech) Program. The EEEI system, comprised of three 1kW modules, could be operated individually or as a complete system with a 3kW power capability, which would provide on-board vehicle electrical power to operate in Silent Watch Mode for three hours compared to the existing lead acid capability of 45 minutes....

John Petersen On September 26, 2011, Bernstein Research and Ricardo plc published a 450 page analytical report titled, "Global Autos: Don't Believe the Hype – Analyzing the Costs & Potential of Fuel-Efficient Technology," which combines best in class securities research from Bernstein with the deep automotive expertise of Ricardo, a global leader in engineering, product innovation and strategic consulting. The result is the most comprehensive, detailed and eminently reasonable forecast of short-, medium- and long-term trends in advanced automotive powertrain technology that I've had the pleasure to read. It's devoid of axe grinding or cheer-leading and...

John Petersen In 2009, the world produced some 13.2 billion metric tons of hydrocarbons, or about 4,200 pounds for every man, woman and child on the planet. Burning those hydrocarbons poured roughly 31.3 billion metric tons of CO2 into our atmosphere. The basic premise of alternative energy is that widespread deployments of wind turbines, solar panels and electric vehicles will slash hydrocarbon consumption, reduce CO2 emissions and give us a cleaner, greener and healthier planet. That premise, however, is fatally flawed because our planet cannot produce enough non-ferrous industrial metals to make a meaningful difference and the prices...

Charles MorandIt seems as though the darkest clouds are finally dissipating over alt energy's financing horizon. Over the past few weeks, money has started flowing into the sector again, as evidenced by a number of recent deal announcements: On June 9, I reported on the upcoming IPO for Magma Energy Corp., a geothermal exploration company. The IPO's size will be upped from an initial C$50 MM to C$100 MM, a sign of increased market appetite  SunPower Corp. raised $418 MM in early May through a share and debt offering, and recently announced it had reached a $100...

America’s electric power grid is subject to immense inefficiencies that arise from the interplay between centralized power generation, local power consumption and on demand utility service. To put things into a broad perspective, the nameplate capacity of U.S. generating facilities is about 1 million Megawatts (MW), so if all of our power plants ran 24/7 we would have a theoretical annual generating capacity of 8.7 billion Megawatt-hours (MWh). Since demand for electricity fluctuates on both a daily and seasonal basis, total electric power generation in 2007 was only 4.2 billion MWh, or less than 50% of nameplate...

SatCon Technology Corporation (SATC) announced that it was chosen to supply its grid-tied Starsine inverter for a ZBB Energy Corporation installation demonstrating the benefits of applying energy storage to existing transmission and distribution congestion problems. The project is one of only three selected by the California Energy Commission (CEC) and U.S. Department of Energy to showcase market-ready energy storage technologies as solutions to the growing problem of congestion on the state's power grid. The installation will be located at a PG&E substation. When completed, the system will improve transmission and distribution reliability and allow for the continued use of...

John Petersen This morning A123 Systems filed another registration statement amendment for its planned IPO. The amendment specifies a preliminary price range of $8.00 to $9.50 and a preliminary offering size of 25 million shares (28.85 million shares with over-allotment option). Amendments like today's filing occur during the late stages of an IPO and it's not unusual to see the price range or offering size increase in later filings. Both of the preliminary values are about half of what I expected. The price range surprises me because of its rough parity with the $9.20 per share...

John Petersen I’ve recently learned that lithium-ion batteries might be a triple threat – Borgia batteries – cherished by eco-royalty, poisonous in the extreme, and explosive enough to wreak havoc in a $25 million laboratory that was built to safely manage battery explosions. Is it a battery or a WMD? On April 11th five employees of the advanced battery laboratory at the General Motors (GM) Technical Center in Warren, Michigan were hurt when extreme testing of a prototype lithium-ion battery pack from A123 Systems (AONE) released chemical gases that exploded inside a testing chamber. Four were...