April 2016

THE INSTALLATION OF THE PILOT PLANT OF LIFE ZAESS PROJECT HAS BEEN ACCOMPLISHED

By admin29 April, 2016Progress

According to the plan, the installation of the pilot plant of the project has been successfully completed during the month of March. It is a zinc-air flow battery of 1 kW and 4 kWh consisting of three modules, which will serve as a test bed for the next phase of the project.

The cells of the battery are connected in series to provide a nominal voltage of 24 V and a maximum current of 90 A. For its part, the energy is stored in about 1 m3 of electrolyte which is circulated through the cells using pumps. Regarding the air necessary to discharge the battery, it is driven directly from the atmosphere, previously passing through a conventional filter. The whole plant is built in plastic, inexpensive and recyclable materials. In addition, the electrolyte is nonflammable, which gives the plant greater security.

The battery incorporates a monitoring system to carry out the measurement and recording of all necessary system parameters. The test plan scheduled for 12 months duration has been defined in the first stage of the project based on international protocols and standards, according to the intended applications for the technology under study.

After the testing stage, and from data collected during its progress, a technical and economic study to validate the operation of a large-scale plant equivalent will be carried out.

International Zinc/Air Battery Workshop

By admin20 April, 2016News

The first IZABW (International Zinc/Air Battery Workshop) was attended by a hundred researchers from different universities and companies from European countries like Germany, France, Spain, Italy, United Kingdom, Norway, Austria, Bulgaria, Denmark and Switzerland as well as countries such as Canada, Israel, China, Malaysia and Singapore. The workshop took place at the WBZU (Education and Training Centre Ulm for Innovative Energy Technologies) in the German city of Ulm, and was organized under the project BMBF “Zinc/Air Battery with Advanced Materials for Storage of Renewable Energies and Grid Balancing “(LUZI).

Technicians from Tecnicas Reunidas attended the event to present a poster on the activities within the project LIFE ZAESS, focusing on the construction of the zinc/air flow battery pilot plant.

In addition, during the conference they could learn from the experiences of other research centres about zinc/air technology. Thus, the attendance at this conference has allowed TR to meet potential partners for future projects.

In conclusion of the conference, it should be noted that new electrolytes and new materials are the subject of many studies, and thus the current results of technology are expected to improve in the coming years.

Further information: Poster IZABW ZAESS (also available on documents’ section).