THE DAILY ROUNDUP – Friday
Electric car charging points hit 1000 as petrol stations close
Scotland has hit a major milestone as the number of electric vehicle charging points reached 1,000 as petrol stations close down. Campaigners have welcomed the continued development of the electric charging network as it brings Scotland’s drivers closer to adopting electric vehicles as standard. ChargePlace Scotland, the network of charge points funded by…
Green energy has a plethora of failures
The annals of green energy are filled with people who devised “brilliant solutions” to vexing problems, delivering more power for less money, making things cleaner, easier, and better. Some became rich and famous in the process. And then there are the folks who were less successful. They created systems that generated electricity, but not cheaply. They struggled…
Energy Vault Lands $110M From SoftBank’s Vision Fund for Gravity Storage
Energy Vault, the Swiss-U.S. startup that says it can store and discharge electrical energy through a super-sized concrete-and-steel version of a child’s erector set, has landed a $110 million investment from Japan’s SoftBank Vision Fund to take its technology to commercial scale. Energy Vault, a spinout of Pasadena-based incubator Idealab and co-founded by…
Electric Boats Could Be Floating Batteries for Island Microgrids
Researchers in Australia have developed a control algorithm that allows electric boats equipped with solar panels to sell power to a microgrid. In developed countries, lights roar to life with the flick of a switch and televisions hum quietly with the touch of a button—given you still have one of those. But on most of Indonesia’s remote islands, accessing electricity is…
Renewables: A new energy paradigm
India is one of the fastest-growing major economies in the world, having grown at 7.6 percent during 2015-18. The country aims to become a $5-trillion (Dh18.3 trillion) economy over the next five years. The Economic Survey 2019 of the Government of India identifies the need to spend 7-8 percent of GDP on infrastructure every year, translating into an annual…