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Batteries battery alliance nrel

Published on May 3rd, 2013 | by Tim Tyler

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International Battery & Energy Storage Alliance Established

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May 3rd, 2013 by  

A newly formed alliance, the International Battery and Energy Storage Alliance (IBESA), has been created to help facilitate collaboration between solar, electrical energy storage, and smart grid technologies companies.

solar battery storage

Image Credit: Byron Stafford / NREL

IBESA was formed by the International PV Equipment Association (IPVEA) and solar research group EuPD to represent the emerging solar storage sector.

The IBESA will help give access to market intelligence, new networks, professional resources, and emerging markets. More than 70 IPVEA members will benefit from this partnership.

Markus Hoehner, chief executive of EuPD said in the press release:

A strong, industry-wide alliance of global players like the IBESA is crucial in order to unify the fragmented electrical energy storage and smart grid markets, as well as to prepare and position them sustainably for the future.



Bryan Ekus, managing director of IPVEA, added:

Our goal is to promote photovoltaics and the electrical energy storage market and provide real benefits for our member companies.

Having a cost-effective storage technology for solar is imperative for the ongoing roll-out of renewable energy.

IBESA aims to promote both PV and its associated storage market to provide benefits to member companies. IPVEA’s Ekus added:

The international alliance is based on cooperation between various branches and the exchange between IPVEA and new IBESA members.

The PV storage market is projected to hit $19 million in 2017, as other countries follow the lead being shown by Germany in adopting storage technologies.

Germany has already formed a national energy storage trade body and, starting this month, it is offering a subsidy for PV storage systems.

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About the Author

Holds an electronic's engineering degree and is working toward a second degree in IT/web development. Enjoy's renewable energy topic's and has a passion for the environment. Part time writer and web developer, full time husband and father.


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  • Bob_Wallace

    You folks in Oz-land should check your sock drawers.

    Looks like someone has been making puppets again…

    • Nathan

      The UltraBattery is a hybrid energy-storage device, which combines a supercapacitor and a lead-acid battery in a unit cell. However, electricity from renewable sources is intermittent and variable only producing energy when the sun shines or wind blows.The UltraBattery can store renewable energy providing reliability, stability and load levelling.

      In comparison to alternate renewable energy battery options, the UltraBattery is low cost, durable, has faster discharge/charge rates and has a life cycle two to three times longer than a regular lead-acid battery.

  • Mark W

    The Ultra battery is all rounder solution for energy storage.

    CSIRO made invention in Australian produced The Ultra Battery which has turned the conventional lead-acid battery into a dynamic technology. The battery found in cars a deep cycle applications used a super capacitor resulting in an economical, super fast-charging battery with long-life power.

    The Ultra Battery is about 70 per cent cheaper to make than batteries with comparable performance and can be made using existing manufacturing facilities, a number of applications are possible, meaning that the cost will remain low as there no need for external manufacturing facilities to be set up, the Ultra Battery is ideally suited for hybrid-electric and conventional vehicles, renewable energy storage, remote area power supply, emergency power backup and forklift trucks.

    • Jen

      Hay Mark W the Ultra battery sound like a very cheap solution method for energy storage then the other technologies out there. More expensive & complicated process, while the Ultra battery uses conventional 200-year-old technology with the additional super capacitors which allows the battery to absorb high energy charges unlike the other batteries, this is a very good invention. This battery certainly would bring down the cost of conventional battery storage to a far cheaper alternative to that of the zinc flow technology, gel battery, SLA battery. Let’s hope the manufacturers take up this process for off grid applications.

  • Mark W

    Battery storage will never work on a large scale given the cost of this type of gel battery has a limited life span. Far as I’m concern gel battery dry up within three years of been new, that what they call maintenance free battery’s, you just waste your money on sealed gel batteries. These batteries cannot be charge like that of a deep cycle flooded lead acid batteries, don’t even think of over charge the gel battery as you will soon find out that the battery has dry-up, and then start to internally short-out in side then blow it’ self apart as gases build up in side, gel battery are more of a slow charging battery. Gel battery are even known to melt when one of the battery in series drop in voltage causing the other batteries to reflect an higher voltage across the cells of each of them, which then becoming extremely hot to melting point of the plastic.

    Gel battery are very hard to determine the life span as you can only test them under a load tester, even then the battery can be dry inside, there is no real way of knowing the condition state of the cell.

    • http://zacharyshahan.com/ Zachary Shahan

      Unclear of your concern. The battery storage market is projected to skyrocket. There are many technology options.

      • Mark W

        No, you totally miss the point I was making, gel batteries are limited, the life span of this type’s batteries it not the best solution for energy storage. They only used this type of battery as backup system in building for emergency power supply. It a very slow charging battery and not the answer for energy storage, if your were to charge this battery like other battery the life span is shorten to 1.5 to 3 years.

      • Jimmy

        Could you follow up on the CSIRO made invention in Australian produced, The Ultra battery.

        • http://zacharyshahan.com/ Zachary Shahan

          will have a look. thanks.

    • http://soltesza.wordpress.com/ sola

      Uh. Gel batteries are a niche in large-scale energy storage and is not planned to be a solution by anyone. (They are mostly used in data-centers for short-span backup energy when their large-scale application is concerned).

      Currently, the most promising large-scale storage batteries are different kinds of flow-battery designs (see the recent work of Cui) and some traditional but improved ones (GE Durathon)

      • Mark W

        I can see that you don’t live off the grid like I do, fully independent of main power.

        You totally miss the point I was making the life span of this type’s of batteries it not the best solution for energy storage.

        I spent $50,000 on batteries and solar set up, in of that which I have 12 kW system per hour which I put in place, I produce hot water with an electric hot water tank with my solar system running off 24 VDC battery set up, the system to run the refrigerator TV and lights et cetera. I have no problems with hot water as I can run hot water 24 hours a day. I’m very glad I set up my system this way because the utility company is now asking $0.55 a kilowatt-hour, plus the meter reading which is $1.50 per day plus GST tax at 10% on top of all that, which is enormous.

        Which equate to $13,000 a year in payments to the power company

        • Bob_Wallace

          Mark, you went pretty far off topic with your post.

          This article is not about gel batteries or off-grid power. I find neither mentioned.

          • Mark W

            No i was making the point that Gel battery are not the solution for energy storage.The Ultra battery is all rounder solution for energy storage a better option are out there like the Ultra Battery.

            CSIRO made invention in Australian produced The Ultra Battery which has turned the conventional lead-acid battery into a dynamic technology. The battery found in cars a deep cycle applications used a super capacitor resulting in an economical, super fast-charging battery with long-life power.

            The Ultra Battery is about 70 per cent cheaper to make than batteries with comparable performance and can be made using existing manufacturing facilities, a number of applications are possible, meaning that the cost will remain low as there no need for external manufacturing facilities to be set up, the Ultra Battery is ideally suited for hybrid-electric and conventional vehicles, renewable energy storage, remote area power supply, emergency power backup and forklift trucks.

    • http://www.facebook.com/theirishlion13 Phil Teague

      I don’t understand the assumption that the grid storage would use gel batteries, Mark. If you search this site you will see there has been a lot of research dumped into redox-flow batteries (Zinc-Air for example) and a company like Aquion is also on the radar. Good information about the gel batteries though, I’ll keep it in mind.

      • Mark W

        I never said that, the point i was making gel batteries are not the answer for energy storage. Read again.

    • http://www.facebook.com/matthew.t.peffly Matthew Todd Peffly

      Well there were two hint that this isn’t about gel-batteries.

      1) the name IBESA = “International Battery and Energy Storge Alliance” “and” is like addition “this and that”. So batteries (all type) and “other” energy storage approaches.

      2) if you look you see their statement “There will be no one storage technology type that will be in focus. IBESA will look at all technologies”

      • Mark W

        No it was an opinion on gel batteries are not the best answer for energy storage.

        Recently I set up an experiment comparing the two systems, off grid battery storage and grid connection, using 1kw system side by side each having 1kw dedicated to each system over a day period, set up in a 24 V system configuration installing energy measurements meters installed on both the input and output of the systems to compare the results.

        Conclusion Finding that in MPPT solar grid connected system produced 4 .7kW less in the day, compared to the battery storage system over the same time period, the main reason for this was the MPPT drops out thus shutting down the system making it inefficient in delivering energy, while the battery operated system continue to receive solar energy coming on top with a gain 4.7 kW more stored energy produced.

    • Alan

      Very good point you make Mark,

      I purchased battery some years ago as a backup system to my grid connected system. As you pointed out the Gel battery didn’t last more than four years, I was sold and told this battery would last more than 15 years somewhat of a furphy, I converted back to the deep cycle lead acid battery and have been going on for now 10 years without any problem. I’m sceptical of new technology out there that claims they can deliver better performance and the old deep cycle battery, I recently read an article on a fluid type battery in Queensland Australia, which requires fluid to be pumped around on a continuous basis, that battery didn’t last more than three months, as the experiment caught fire at the University research facility.

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