EEStor
Originally created on January 13 2008
| Mar 12 |
Waiting on EEStor - holding our breath
seanseamour on Mar 12 2008 | Filed under: EEStor Edit This
After the January announcement of the marketing agreement with Lockheed Martin, news bits from Zenn announcing a performance upgrade for their electric vehicles, Forbes actually published a picture of the long awaited “arlesienne”
Perhaps more interesting yet is the performances announced in the Forbes articleby Melanie Linder “EEStor says it solved that problem using a ceramic ultracapacitor with a barium-titanate insulator that can absorb higher amounts of energy per given unit of mass (called specific energy). According to the company, EEStor’s batteries boast specific energy of 280 watt-hours per kilogram, whereas a lithium ion battery has about 120 watt-hours and a lead-acid gel battery, commonly used in golf carts and motor scooters, has only 32 watt hours”
But this is just one of the news bits, even if much appears as updates of previous articles, MIT’s Technology Review has an interesting article publishes on January 22nd :
“A New Deal for EEStor. A delayed battery technology may indeed be on the way”
We are all holding our breath but to add to the excitement Popular Mechanics published yesterday an article relating to research under way at MIT on what appears to be yet another approach to advanced ultracapacitors, I refer you to “MIT Builds Efficient Nanowire Storage to Replace Car Batteries
[~jan~~22~]EEStor : the next paradigm shift?
Is if for real? The bold claims about a new ultracapacitor technology rendering the battery to an object of the past has nurtured more and more scepticicsm as milestones were left behind. We watched Zenn Motors re-engine to turtle speed it’s PEV launch… we had almost forgotten EEStor, then as we reported last week, out of the blue Lockheed Martin jumped into the fray to secure exclusive rights for defense and homeland security applications and this morning Zenn Motors is all of a sudden announcing plans for remotorization of its PEV to intitially announced specs.
MIT’ Technology Review “A New Deal for EEStor, a delayed battery technology may indeed be on the way” adds another layer of comfort today, rehashing a lot of what we know but with some bells and whistles that could spell the words “for real”; as a teaser we will borrow from the article as follows : “ZENN chief executive Ian Clifford remains optimistic. “Every restatement of delivery time has been for good reasons,” he says, suggesting that the Lockheed announcement and the due diligence that led to it “add credibility to the technology.” He’s now expecting delivery of the energy-storage unit in mid-2008. And it won’t be a prototype, he emphasizes: it will be a mass-produced commercial product. “This is about commercialization, not hitting technology roadblocks. We’re in constant contact with EEStor, with regular visits to their site. We always come away from every meeting much more excited that this is going to happen.”
[~jan~~13~]
EEStor is a small private Texas company known primarily for being one of the most secretive players in the energy storage development community. If we say energy storage versus battery it is beacuse of the nature of this company’ product development which has claimed will replace the battery.
EEStor has been working on a new method for making ultracapacitors, which are battery-like devices that if successful, would enable a plug-in vehicle such as Canada’ ZENN that had been counting on this technology for which they hold exclusive rights for the automotive sector, to be recharged in the same amount of time it takes to pump a tank of fuel and drive 300 miles (500km) on that one charge.
The deal with ZENN Motor and a $3 million investment by the venture capital group Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, which made big-payoff early bets on companies like Google Inc. and Amazon.com Inc., provided credibility that EEStor might be on the edge of a breakthrough technology. Applications for the technology could be very wide, notably for the renewable-energy sector by providing efficient, lightning-fast storage for solar power, or, on a small scale, a flash-charge for cell phones and laptops. Batteries rely on chemical reactions to store energy but can take hours to charge and release energy EEStor’s secret ingredient is a material sandwiched between thousands of wafer-thin metal sheets, like a series of foil-and-paper gum wrappers stacked on top of each other. Charged particles stick to the metal sheets and move quickly across EEStor’s proprietary material, a chemical compound called barium titanate — chemical researchers say the strength and functionality of this material is the only thing standing between EEStor and the holy grail of energy-storage technology.
For years, EEStor has tried to fly beneath the radar in the competitive industry for alternative energy, industry leader, Maxwell Technologies Inc. who we mention in the above posting has kept a wary eye on EEStor’s claims and listed the things that could go wrong with the ultracapacitor technology operating at extremely high voltage, 10 times greater than those Maxwell manufactures as described in EEStor’s patent
We were very intrigued at first, anxiously awaiting the launch of the Zenn PEV for validation of principle but the launch came with wildly lower performance that even Li-ion would have likely doubled or trebled, the ” paradigm shift,” announced by Ian Clifford, chief executive of Toronto-based ZENN Motor Co and EEStor’ promise of a replacement of electrochemical batteries evaporated.
As EEStor dropped below the radar where it has been comfortable in the past, two events just occurred : first EEStor’ Board of Directors was reinforced with the arrival of Morton L. Topfer, Managing Director of Castletop Capital L.P., an investment firm that focuses on private equity and real estate investments, followed by the announcement of an exclusive product marketing agreement with none less that Lockheed Martin Marietta. I will publish their press release below as it is the most telling information to date on what is really happening at EEStor.
press release:
Lockheed Martin [NYSE: LMT] has signed an exclusive international rights agreement to integrate and market Electrical Energy Storage Units (EESU) from EEStor, Inc., for military and homeland security applications. Specific terms of the agreement were not disclosed.
EEStor, based in Cedar Park, TX, is developing a ceramic battery chemistry that could provide 10 times the energy density of lead acid batteries at 1/10th the weight and volume. As envisioned, EESUs will be a fully “green” technology that will be half the price per stored watt-hour than traditional battery technologies.
“Lockheed Martin has a wide range of innovative energy solutions for federal, state and regional energy applications,” said Glenn Miller, vice president of Technical Operations and Applied Research at Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control. “The EEStor energy storage technology provides potential solutions for the demanding requirements for energy in military and homeland defense applications.”
EESUs are planned as nontoxic, non-hazardous and non-explosive. Since the EESU design is based on ultra-capacitor architecture, it will allow for flexible packaging and rapid charge/discharge capabilities. EESUs will be ideally suited for a wide range of power management initiatives that could lead to energy independence for the Warfighter.
“Lockheed Martin continues to focus on providing our Warfighters with new and innovative technologies that will make their jobs easier,” said Lionel Liebman, manager of Program Development - Applied Research at Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control. “Our ruggedized BattPackTM energy storage unit generated considerable interest at the Association of the United States Army Annual Meeting in October 2007 for its potential for fuel savings in vehicular silent watch applications. The potential of an even safer, smaller and more powerful EESU in BattPackTM would significantly enhance the Warfighter’s capabilities.”
EESU qualification testing and mass production at EEStor’s facility in Cedar Park is planned for late 2008.
EEStor, Inc., of Cedar Park, TX, originally developed its solid-state EESU technology as a longer lasting, lighter, more powerful environmentally friendly electronic storage unit for a wide variety of applications. EEStor’s vision also includes EESU facilitating the conversion of wind energy and photovoltaics into primary electrical energy providers and increasing the role of renewables for increasing energy production. Its CEO and president, Richard Weir, is also the inventor named on its EESU principal technology patent.
Headquartered in Bethesda, Md., Lockheed Martin employs about 140,000 people worldwide and is principally engaged in the research, design, development, manufacture, integration and sustainment of advanced technology systems, products and services.
EEStor is back on the “watch list” !
Jack…
Great post, very informative. Have learned a lot from your site….