Solar Love
  • Rooftop Solar
    • Energy Storage
  • Solar Panels
  • Policy
  • Research
    • Science
    • Market Research
    • Solar Perceptions & Polls
  • Related Pages
    • Energy Seek: Business Electricity Prices
    • Energy Seek: Compare Business Gas
    • Energy Seek: Compare Energy Suppliers
    • OVO Energy: Energy Efficient Cooking
    • EDF Energy: Energy Efficient Lighting
    • Constellation: Energy Efficient Air Con

Solar Love

  • Rooftop Solar
    • Energy Storage
  • Solar Panels
  • Policy
  • Research
    • Science
    • Market Research
    • Solar Perceptions & Polls
  • Related Pages
    • Energy Seek: Business Electricity Prices
    • Energy Seek: Compare Business Gas
    • Energy Seek: Compare Energy Suppliers
    • OVO Energy: Energy Efficient Cooking
    • EDF Energy: Energy Efficient Lighting
    • Constellation: Energy Efficient Air Con
Energy Storage

SimpliPhi Home Battery Outperforms Powerwall

by Steve Hanley September 14, 2015
written by Steve Hanley September 14, 2015
SimpliPhi battery systems

To hear Tesla tell it, the Powerwall residential storage battery is the greatest invention since sliced bread, but not everyone agrees. SimpliPhi has just announced its own home battery storage that is says outperforms the Powerwall in every parameter and costs less, too.

SimpliPhi battery systemsWhat make the SimpliPhi battery different? According to CleanTechnica, it’s a lithium0ion battery like Tesla’s product, but uses no cobalt. CEO Catherine Von Burg says, “Our products do not generate heat or require ventilation or cooling and do not pose the risk of thermal runaway characteristic of lithium cobalt based batteries, and this creates significant efficiencies and savings for any given installation.”

Those are important considerations. Conventional lithium-ion batteries require built-in cooling systems that add complexity, cost, and weight to the finished product. You may recall earlier this year when a Boeing Dreamliner caught fire at London’s Heathrow airport due to a problem with its lithium-ion batteries.

But the SimpliPhi battery has other advantages as well, according to Utility Dive. It can be fully discharged without damage and has a much higher maximum discharge rate. It also operates at better than 98% efficiency over more than 5,000 discharge cycles, which makes it suitable for daily use. The company says its battery operating costs are 1/5 those of the Powerwall.

SimpliPhi CTO and founder Stuart Lennox was working in the film industry in 2001 when he scouted an e-bike as a prop for a commercial shoot. Film sets are a welter of power cords all running various cameras and sound equipment. Lennox was struck by how much simpler things would be if each piece of equipment had its own built-in battery. Lennox says, “I was so impressed with the battery in [the e-bike], I took out a loan on my home, went to e-bike and had six custom battery prototypes made that could be used to power 35 MM movie cameras and portable lighting to my specifications.”

By 2002, Lennox founded the LibertyPak company based on lithium-ion batteries incorporating cobalt. Within five years, though, LibertyPak transitioned to another new technology, the even better performing lithium ferrous phosphate (LFP) platform.

In 2010, LibertyPak began working with SimpliPhi, headed by Van Burg. Doing business as Optimized Energy Storage (OES), the partnership secured important contracts with the Department of Defense to provide onsite storage of electricity and thereby reduce the amount of petroleum products that need to be transported in combat zones. Tanker convoys were primary targets for insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The OES mission, as set forth on its website, is comprehensive and far-reaching:

  • Mobilize people and electricity beyond the limits of the GRID through distributed and portable energy storage and management systems.
  • Create the means for people to be their own clean renewable power generation  site anytime, anywhere.
  • Empower people to collect, store, transport and utilize their own renewable  energy independent of or in conjunction with the grid.
  • Potentiate a new model of power generation, distribution and utilization that is  efficient, decentralized, community based and environmentally sustainable.
  • Build through energy storage and management systems the means by which homes, businesses and communities can place decision making about the  source, use and timing of electrical power in their own hands.
  • Liberate individuals and communities from dependence on large centralized delivery systems that require inefficient and environmentally damaging  extraction, generation and transmission of natural resources.
  • Engender a sense of stewardship and accountability toward the land and our natural resources within the context of power generation, distribution and utilization.

SimpliPhi has not released pricing information for its home battery storage products at this time.

LibertyPaklithium ferrous phosphate batterySimpliPhiTesla PowerWall
0 comment
0
FacebookTwitterPinterest
Steve Hanley

writes about the interface between technology and sustainability from his home in Rhode Island. You can follow him on Google + and on Twitter.

previous post
San Antonio Utility Promotes New Rooftop Solar Model
next post
ABB Commands 50% Share In India’s Solar Power Inverters Market

You may also like

Solar+Storage Project Awarded In India’s Andaman Islands

April 23, 2018

Report: US Energy Storage Market To Triple In...

March 10, 2018

Nissan & Eaton Bring Residential Storage Batteries To...

May 8, 2017

NREL Releases Landmark Residential Solar + Energy Storage...

March 30, 2017

Solar + Storage Already Cheaper Than Grid In...

March 28, 2017

Sonnen Plans Atlanta Headquarters For US Residential Battery...

March 27, 2017

Musk Plan For Grid Storage In South Australia...

March 15, 2017

Tesla Powerpack Installation On Kauai Turns Tesla Into...

March 8, 2017

Nothing Can Stop Renewables Now: Top Energy Storage...

February 19, 2017

The Great Energy Disruption

February 14, 2017

Follow Me

Facebook

Recent Posts

  • Meet PVCase: A 3D Solar Design Software That Every PV Designer Should Consider

    June 12, 2019
  • Mitsui To Partner With Indian Company For Distributed Solar Projects

    June 10, 2019
  • India’s NTPC Offers Solar Project Management Services To ISA Members

    June 9, 2019
  • Equinor & Scatec Solar Complete 162 Megawatt Brazilian Solar Plant

    November 29, 2018
  • Gamesa Awarded 400 Megawatt Solar Project In Egypt

    November 29, 2018
  • Facebook

@2019 - All Right Reserved solarlove.org


Back To Top