This proposal involves a simple synergy of government incentives and distributed energy storage applications. But first, I’d like to briefly discuss some of the issues that this solution addresses.

The Issues

Climate Change (more…)

LightSail Energy (LightSail) is a Berkeley, California, company that has developed compressed air energy storage technology which may be used for grid-scale storage.

The company’s central innovation is the injection of a mist of water spray into a compressed air system so (more…)

The past ten years have seen major changes in the types of technologies that are used to produce and consume energy. As dwindling oil reserves place greater strain on energy markets, the green energy revolution is likely to accelerate. This is not simply reserved to your typical alternative energy industries such as wind and solar, but is expanding (more…)

From solar-in-a-suitcase to super-efficient irrigation systems, my time at the CleanTech Open’s North Central awards show proved that the U.S. has no shortage of innovators, entrepreneurs, or passion. I came away feeling hopeful about our future, patriotic about the diversity of our country, and humbled by the perseverance of our entrepreneurs. (more…)

The electrical grid is a complex network connecting thousands of power sources with millions of consumers all across the U.S. While producing enough power to supply the energy needs of a nation is an extremely difficult task, just as challenging, if not more so, is the need to balance supply and demand on the grid. (more…)

Storing energy produced during off-peak times is one of the challenges the renewable energy industry faces and which will be exacerbated as more intermittent forms of electricity generation enter the grid. One of the latest propositions to solve the problem has surfaced in the UK, via the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, who said that turning air into liquid (more…)

In my time spent working on Brooklyn apartments, I’ve seen some strange things, but nothing as odd as the time I witnessed a man harnessing the power of his elliptical to send electricity to the other lights in the home. Weird, right? Nonetheless – this may be the direction in which we’re heading!

Recently, an inventor named Ryan Jongwoo Choi (more…)

I’ve been thinking about my up-coming meeting with Dr. Raj Pachauri, who, among other things, serves as the chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Pondering this in advance of the meeting, I wonder what I would do, given the power, to deal with climate change. (more…)

Battery technology keeps improving in terms of density and storage, but how about changing the very form in it which a battery is presented? This is what researchers at Rice University in Texas have done with the creation of a paintable battery solution that reinvents the whole concept. (more…)

Isentropic is a UK company that has developed an energy storage system called Pumped Heat Electricity Storage (PHES).

Isentropic owns several international and U.S. patents and applications. U.S. Application Publication No. 2010/0257862 (’862 Application) describes and claims the PHES technology. (more…)