Intensive use of renewable energy by emerging economies inevitable for solving global warming problem
Emerging economies account for 90% of global energy demand to 2035. (IEA, WorldEnergy Outlook 2013)Global energy consumption will be seriously increased by the Base of Pyramid (BoP) who have less than $3,000 annual income, and occupies 70% of world population, 4 billion.
Solar Home System (SHS) rapidly penetrating into BoP rural off-grid areas
It is noteworthy that small solar energy systems called “solar home system (SHS),” have been rapidly installed in rural off-grid areas of Bangladesh. The SHS comprises a small photovoltaic cell (50 to 100Wp), a lead-acid battery and a controller. The total number of SHS is reaching 3 million, and almost 1 million SHSs are being installed per year. Bangladesh has succeeded in the SHS program so well that the total number of lead-acid batteries for SHS has become greater than the number of car batteries. The lead in the batteries pollute the environment.The Innovation is anticipated to replace the lead acid batteries by environmentally clean, high-energy-density devices such as Lithium-ion batteries, and to greatly enhance the SHS capacity.
The Virtual Grid
All the elements are networked and their behavior logs are collected by the cloud to enable:Use of portable environmentally-benign batteries with high energy density beyond the SOH deterioration limit defined by the makers as long as evaluated as safe.Sharing batteries by end users.Trading electricity to support small electricity service businesses to form virtual grid.
Determining the optimal time to discard individual batteries is important to cut down the total cost of electricity storage. The cumulative failure probability function is calculated for individual classes of batteries as bivariate distribution function for cycle times and storage time. The cumulative probability of failure in the future for a specific battery is calculated from this function following the past and estimated future usage behavior described by the two variables for the specific battery. The time to discard the battery is determined by comparing the estimated cost of continuing to use the battery until it fails and recovering from the failure with the cost of replacing the battery with a new one, using the cumulative failure probability.
an introduction of Info-Powered Energy System Research Center (20min.)