Valence Technology (Valence) is an Austin, Texas, energy storage technology developer that makes lithium iron magnesium phosphate battery modules.

According to this piece in the Austin Business Journal, Valence recently won a four-year patent infringement suit against Montreal-based Phostech Lithium (more…)

The Andalucia region of Spain has developed many solar firsts: the world’s first commercial solar power tower (PS10), the largest (PS20), as well as the world’s first solar power plant that generates solar electricity past midnight.  Andalucia will soon add another first to that shiny list: the world’s first commercial baseload solar power plant. (more…)

One of the central questions yet to be answered in energy technology is how to store energy from alternative sources like solar or wind that don’t always produce power when we need it.  For the Navy and Marine Corps, this is particularly important, as we move toward our established goal of at least 50% non-fossil fuel use by 2020.

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I’ve added a hot new business plan to the list I’m now featuring. I spoke yesterday with Joe Speace, CEO of “Project Renewable Energy” near Kansas City, whose raising capital for a wind farm that will feature compressed air energy storage (CAES). This looks quite strong.

Storage will be a big deal soon, as the (more…)

I recently learned of a compelling instance of U.S. government-funded clean tech research translating into widely commercialized technology through green patent licensing.

Argonne National Laboratory announced last month that LG Chem and General Motors had completed licensing agreements (more…)

The 2012 Department of Energy budget submitted to Congress on Monday includes a 20-page section on Vehicle Technologies (VT), and nearly every word of it refers to vehicle electrification. In language of funding dollars, the VT budget jumps by 80 percent from $325 million to $588 million.

The majority ($229 million) of the VT (more…)

The new year brings some good pieces of news on the energy storage front. If the first week of 2011 is any indication of trends to come over the next 12 months, there’s much to look forward to in the area of utility-scale energy storage.

Perhaps the biggest news (not in terms of scale but in terms of significance) is that the first utility-scale battery storage system in (more…)

While renewable energy is openly embraced by many in the world there are plenty who are willing to heap criticisms upon the many facets of the energy type. One of the most common forms of criticism for types of renewable energy like solar, wind, or tidal and wave based energies is that the power source is unpredictable and never constant, meaning that any area utilizing renewable (more…)

As Argonne National Laboratory Director Eric D. Isaacs noted in his recent Huffpo op ed, the U.S. must have a 21st-century energy grid if clean, renewable energy technologies like solar are to thrive.

The Argonne Lab is one of 21 laboratories operating under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to identify, (more…)

Chinese company BYD will bring its electric and plug-in vehicles to North America in 2011 as one part of a threefold strategy for exporting technology. BYD’s first plug-in car, the F3DM, has arrived in California where it will be used in a pilot project by the Los Angeles Housing Authority. The F3DM has 40-60 miles of electric range and 300 miles of gasoline range, and in a unique (more…)