Germany-based International Technology Roadmap for Photovoltaic (ITRPV) tracked 10% solar power price falls last year as production capacity goes past 200GW worldwide. The average solar module was 21 to 24 cents per Watt-peak last year.
Throw in similar trends in wind renewables and producing the energy without fossil fuels has never been cheaper.
The second bounce of the ball is how this energy can be stored and used when required rather than just when the sun is shining or wind blowing. Tesla has been described as a power company with an electric car maker attached for its developments of the lithium-ion battery storage products and press reports say it is applying for a UK electricity generator licence in the UK. But while useful for a few hours storage or connecting up a virtual grid of batteries, longer-duration batteries, such as hydro storage, can be complementary.
In this light, CleanTechnica’s coverage of the agreement between Form Energy and Great River Energy that will see a 1 MW/150 MWh aqueous air battery installed and operational sometime in 2023 is eye-catching.
Form Energy has raised more than $50m from venture capital firm Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Eni Next, the corporate venturing unit of Italy-based energy firm Eni, and The Engine, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology-linked incubator and investment fund. It is trying to get energy storage costs down 10-fold from about $200 per kilowatt-hour to less than $20/kwh.
As CleanTechnica noted: “And if that is the case, boom! There goes the case for making electricity by burning stuff or heating stuff. Goodbye coal, oil, natural gas, biomass and nuclear.”
But even more fundamental than electricity is the use of power to drive life. In a paper in Science tracked by SingularityHub, France- and Germany-based university researchers have come up with hybrid synthetic and artificial systems able to fix carbon in the presence of light just like a plant and possessed all the essential characteristics of photosynthesis. This “synthetic chloroplast”, if transplanted into cells with synthetic proteins with repair and reproduction capabilities, would power artificial life or test drugs – something increasingly useful looking at the landscape of Covid-19 vaccine candidates tracked by the World Health Organization.
Much of the world might be seemingly looking at its navel while working from home but the power of innovation across sectors and technologies is combining into a powerful force for change.
Graphic: ITRPV
