Some innovations need system integrators and coordination

Much innovation occurs by incremental improvements in technology. Jet engines gradually replaced piston engines in the aircraft industry. Cathode ray tube television sets have been replaced by flat screen televisions.

Other innovations are not so easily made by incremental adoption. A vehicle manufacture developing the first model able to be fueled by unleaded petrol would have difficulty finding a customer if no petrol station sold unleaded petrol. A petrol station proprietor would be unlikely to stock unleaded petrol when no customers drove vehicles needing unleaded petrol and no oil refinery made unleaded petrol....

Innovations are often disruptive and the benefits come with adverse effects ...

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Fed Govt warns electric cars will hit its bottom line by driving fall in fuel excise revenue https://t.co/KwMJzSGDGO pic.twitter.com/vPyXC1N3Ti

— ABC Current Affairs (@amworldtodaypm) August 16, 2016

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Many innovations only work when they are part of a collection of co-ordinated changes that are adopted across a number of industry participants.

The components needed to make some innovations work may exist in other fields. Industry participants and product developers can benefit from the skills of  system integrators to locate components for a viable design made up from a collection of products that will work well together.

An example of a wandering albatross GPS track

The technology capabilities of The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, "Tracking seabirds to inform conservation of the marine environment" suggests a way to overcome the quite real concern of the Federal Government that electric cars will hit its bottom line by driving a fall in fuel excise revenue.

Advances in the miniaturisation and mass-production of low-cost, lightweight, high-precision GPS tags, enables tracking the detailed movements of large numbers of seabirds, including some of the smaller species.

"The Turnbull Government is preparing to drive a new debate over how roads are funded in Australia, with the revenue collected from fuel excise expected to shrink in coming years. Right now motorists pay almost 40 cents a litre in tax, delivering close to a $11 billion dollars a year to the Treasury." (@ABCNews, 16 August 2016)

The existing fuel excise that funds roads is raised in proportion to the amount of fuel motorists buy. Motorists who drive only during off-peak times on regional roads pay at the same rate as motorists driving on expressways in cities during peak periods. A replacement technology that can measure the time, distance and location of trips may be sold on the basis that it is more equitable than the existing fuel levy that contributes to road funding.

Mass production of batteries for electric vehicles will drive a significant reduction in their manufacturing cost.

There is an opportunity to combine this predictable reduction in the cost of lithium-ion battery energy storage with the continuing decline in the price of solar photovoltaic (solar PV) systems.

The two technologies don't immediately work well together when people typically drive to work early in the morning and return home late in the day. Any solar energy generated at their home during the day cannot be conveniently used to recharge their electric vehicle.

An option to improve the overall performance and cost-effectiveness of these technologies has been developed ....

This technology makes an electric vehicle's battery pack an interchangeable unit: "6 Reasons Tesla's Battery Swapping Could Take It To a Better Place."

Having an electric vehicle battery at home being recharged during the day allows energy in the battery to be partly discharged at times when spikes in the energy demand exceeds the output of the solar PV system, such as an air-conditioning turning on for 20 - 30 minutes late in the afternoon to cool the home before the residents begin returning from school and work. 

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Another approach

Vanadium flow batteries can be charged and discharged almost indefinitely with little loss in capacity. They weigh more than lithium-ion batteries holding the same amount of energy so they are more suited for fixed energy storage than for powering vehicles.

Instead of using an interchangeable lithium-ion pack to store solar energy during the day and swapping it with a discharged lithium-ion battery pack in a car, a vanadium flow battery could be charged with solar energy during the day and the stored energy could recharge a car's lithium-ion battery pack overnight.

Factor in replacement costs for batteries. #vanadium #energystorage has a 20+ year life span without degradation. pic.twitter.com/N91baBLtjZ

— VSUN Pty Ltd (@vsunptyltd) August 26, 2016

Getting ready to go off the grid

Suppose you have a solar photovoltaic system or a BlueGen fuel cell home generator and a collection of appliances that can be monitored and controlled automatically by a tablet computer.

A hot water system might be set to keep water between 50°C and 60°C.

• If the water temperature is at or below 50°C, the water heater should be on. 
• If the water temperature is at or above 60°C the water heater should be off.

When the water temperature is anywhere between these upper and lower temperatures the status of the heater could be on or off. From your point of view, the status of the water heater ("on" or "off") is "Don't care if on or off".

Refrigerators, freezers, air-conditioners and space heaters can be automatically controlled having regard to:

• A lower temperature at which the appliance should be "on" (for heating appliances) and "off" (for cooling appliances)
• An upper temperature at which the appliance should be "off" (for heating appliances) and "on" (for cooling appliances) 
• For any temperature that is between the lower and upper temperature, the appliance has a status of "Don't care if on or off".

When your home energy system is generating more energy than is required for all appliances that are turned on, extra energy can be sent to some or all appliances that are "off" but have a status of "Don't care if on or off".

A ZigBee HVAC Application

When your home energy system is not generating enough energy for all appliances that are turned on, energy can be saved by cutting energy being sent to some or all appliances that are "on" but have a status of "Don't care if on or off".

Controlling appliances in this way reduces the size and cost of energy storage.

• Excess energy being generated is added to any appliance that can use it.
• Peak energy use is lowered - when more energy is being used than is being generating - by automatically withholding supply from any appliance that can postpone its energy needs.

If your household has an electric vehicle parked in a garage, it can be controlled in an even better way. For example:

• When the battery charge is below 40 percent, charging should be "on".
• When the battery charge is at 100 percent, charging should be "off".
• When the battery charge is between 40 percent and 80 percent, charging can be considered to be "Don't care if on or off".
• When the battery charge is between 80 percent and 100 percent, the battery can be considered to be "Don't care if charging is on or off, OR if discharging is on or off". (That is to optionally SUPPLY energy to the home.)

Notice that the last status above allows the household to make use of any electric vehicle parked in its garage for energy storage - at no extra cost...

A smart meter is not a requirement to implement such an energy management system.

Integrated ZigBee low-cost controllers in a range of appliances from different manufacturers are a prerequisite.

• Proprietary communication protocols and energy automation software would make it very difficult and expensive to implement the desired level of control. 

If you are still connected to the grid, this level of control allows you to reduce the peak demand your household makes from the grid. This strategy helps:

• To reduce the need for network investment in extra poles and wires.
• To avoid the need for price increases for the electricity that you purchase from the electricity grid.

There are a number of businesses with Zigbee technology experience that could help manufacturers begin to offer versions of their appliances that are "ZigBee-enabled".

For example:

• Nanjing IOT Sensor Technology
• NETVOX ZigBee Smart House System

Australian energy innovation jobs

The UltraBattery™, developed by CSIRO Energy Technology in Australia

The UltraBattery™ in a hybrid electric vehicle is able to deliver and absorb charge rapidly during vehicle acceleration and regenerative braking, respectively. In wind turbine applications it can also absorb the noise generated by the variation in wind speed, delivering a smooth power output.

Australia energy innovation jobs

For both advanced automotive applications, and grid-connected wind energy applications, UltraBattery™ has shown excellent performance and has the potential to remarkably improve the economic viability, and therefore the 'uptake rate' of HEVs and better utilisation of renewable energy. This, in turn, will reduce the global consumption of fossil fuels and the production of greenhouse gas emissions.

The UltraBattery™ technology has been licensed to the Furukawa Battery Co., Ltd, Japan and the East Penn Manufacturing Co., Inc., USA.

Ceramic Fuel Cells Ltd, the name behind BlueGen

Formed in 1992 in Australia from the CSIRO and a number of industry consortium partners, Ceramic Fuel Cells Ltd.  (CFCL) is now leading the world in the development of fuel cell technology for stationary power generation.

CFCL has made a significant investment in its future manufacturing capabilities with a € 9.5 million fuel cell assembly plant in Heinsberg, Germany and a ceramic powder plant in Bromborough, United Kingdom.

University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia (UNSW) - Photovoltaic Engineering

Photovoltaic companies linked with UNSW-developed technology form an amazing 4 of the top 6 manufacturers in 2010.
Suntech was the first of the UNSW-linked photovoltaic companies to commence production in China.
It claimed the number 1 position in the rapidly expanding market with close to 1.6 GW of photovoltaic product manufactured during the year.
Number 2 on the list of manufacturers with over 1.4 GW produced in 2010 was JA Solar.
Number 4 on the list was Trina Solar with 1.1 GW produced.
Number 6 on the list and another member of the “gigawatt” club with just over 1 GW produced in 2010 was Yingli Green Energy Holding.


Suntech manufacturing sites, located in China, Japan and the United States, follow the strictest production guidelines and are staffed by highly-trained manufacturing experts.
JA Solar designs, manufactures, and sells monocrystalline and polycrystalline silicon solar cells primarily in China. It also sells the solar cells it produces to solar module manufacturers in Germany, Sweden, Spain, South Korea, and the United States.
Trina Solar is based in Changzhou, China.
Yingli Green Energy production facilities are located at Baoding, Haikou, Tianjin and Hengshui in China.

University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia (UNSW) - Vanadium Redox Flow Batteries

The original vanadium battery patents were bought by an Australian company in 1998, which sold them to a Canadian company.
They were subsequently acquired by Prudent Energy in a firesale during the global financial crisis. Prudent started out as a Chinese company but is now based in US and has secured a huge amount of investment from venture capital companies and the US government stimulus package.

Prudent Energy, is the designer, manufacturer, and integrator of the patented Vanadium Redox Battery Energy Storage System (VRB-ESS®) – a large-capacity energy storage system delivering high performance with low operating costs. Founded in 2007, the Prudent Energy group of companies maintains corporate offices in Bethesda, Maryland in the United States and Beijing, China, with research, development, and assembly facilities in the United States, Canada and Asia.

Reliable Affordable Energy

Do Large Corporations Plan Energy Systems to Fail?

"Drawing on experience gained in the aftermath of the March earthquake and tsunami that devastated parts of eastern Japan, Toyota will introduce a 1.5kW power supply option for the Japan-market Prius within about half a year, and will expand the option to other hybrids in the near future." 

Read more at Green Car Congress, Toyota to offer onboard generator option for hybrids sold in Japan

The gas/petrol engine used in Toyota hybrid technology is more energy-efficient, producing higher output than conventional gas/petrol engines. ...

Maximum power output: 73kW(99PS)/5,200 rpm

Maximum torque: 142N･m(14.5kgf･m)/4,000 rpm

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Toyota's hybrid technology uses a synchronous AC generator capable of high speed axial rotation, realizing substantial electrical power while the car is running in the mid-speed range.
...
The inverter in the Power Control Unit converts ... AC generated by ... the generator into DC to recharge the battery. 

Read more at Toyota Global Technology File, Learn more about the various technologies used in Toyota's hybrid vehicles

At the Carbon Expo held recently in Melbourne, one tweeter said - 

"Australia faces massive costs in transmission, in getting power to market. Might rule out options like Geothermal - AGL"

(Tweet by @TheCO2Manager, 9:24am November 9th, 2011 )

Note the advice in these two comments -

Comments on Green Car Congress article:
Toyota to offer onboard generator option for hybrids sold in Japan

"Ever so gradually the world is turning towards reasonableness, and I'm glad to see that Toyota is part of the turn. I have felt for a long time that the only reasonable setup for an electric vehicle is one with an onboard generator.

Certainly the cost of this is many millions lower than the taxpayer money government is wasting on charging stations."

Posted by: citizen | November 03, 2011 at 11:44 AM 

"@citizen - You're on the right track. But its a bit larger than you're thinking. Toyota's onboard genset and the Japanese earthquake all spell a major wake up call for the old school power grid and power company.

Centralized power generation is the big fail here.

Single source power plants, terrorists, earthquakes, hurricanes, severe electrical storms - are all major threats.

With the advent of low cost CHP power appliances - all these threats are eliminated."

Posted by: Reel$$ | November 04, 2011 at 01:05 AM 

Onboard engines and generators of hybrid electric vehicles could be exploited to eliminate the threats to a power grid to which centralized power plants are vulnerable - as "Reel$$" commented above.

Hybrid electric vehicles generating power for the grid whenever they are parked for extended periods can do much more -

• Overcome the need for "massive costs in transmission, in getting power to market" on which TheCO2Manager tweeted at the recent Carbon Expo in Melbourne, 
• Eliminate the need for investment in large, central power plant, 
• Eliminate reliance on scarce petroleum resources for road transport, and
• Eliminate the cost of transmission and generating capacity to cope with peak electricity demand.

Why not pursue this solution?
 
To eliminate reliance on petroleum transport fuel, Hybrid electric vehicles could be connected to natural gas fuel lines at parking bays. The petrol / gasoline in the vehicles' fuel tanks would be reserved for use when the vehicles were being driven, and even then, only to extend their driving range when the onboard batteries needed recharging.

Hybrid electric vehicles such as the Toyota Prius have onboard engines/generators able to produce 50 kilowatts of electrical energy or more. With an external fuel supply, there is no reason to restrict the power output to just a few kilowatts, as Toyota has recently announced.

Parked Hybrid electric vehicles could be dynamically scheduled to generate power or shutdown in response to demand by a Smart Grid supply management system.