Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Lithium markets: MHI to Enter Lithium-ion Secondary Battery Business TNR.v, CZX.v, SQM, ROC, FMC, AVL.to, RES.v, WLC.v, CLQ.v, LI.v, RM.v, LAT.v, HUI

Electricity is the most convenient form of energy available to us, now we have means to store it.
Applications of this simple statement could transform our way of life dramatically. Once it was estimated that there will be need in maximum six computers in the world. When you have bought CD last time and paid for your mobile phone? Magnitude of this change in energy space will be even more dramatic socially and economically.



This is an important development and we are talking here with MHI about huge new market applications for lithium batteries. Green mobility revolution can ignite and make possible Green Energy revolution after all. Mention speed and scale of entry by MHI into the new market. All demand estimations for our Next Big Thing - Lithium and REE will be blown away with this transformation of energy generation and storage systems. Distributed energy systems and smart grid applications will depend on Lithium based solutions as well. Who will control supply?




"To date MHI has supplied the batteries for sample use, but now it has opted to place them on the market. The company looks to promote lithium-ion secondary battery business through a company wide initiative and will begin by incorporating the batteries into its various products, such as forklift trucks and wind turbine power generation systems."




"Our Electric Cars will help us to grow solar and wind power to charge them.
"A single idle, electric-powered car could generate as much as 10 kilowatts of power, enough to meet the average demand of 10 houses, according to Willett Kempton, director of the Center for Carbon-free Power Integration at the University of Delaware. With vehicle-to-grid technology, controlled by an array of smart meters, car owners plugged in at home or work could allow the grid to draw off unused chunks of power at times when short-term demand is high. Conversely, cars could be recharged when demand is low."
Welcome to Energy business: Charge it Low, Sell it High!"






August 26, 2009 No.1306






"Verification Plant by Fall 2010-- Companywide Initiative to Contribute to Realization of Energy-saving Society --
Tokyo, August 26, 2009 - Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. (MHI) has decided to build a commercial production verification plant in Nagasaki Prefecture and launch its operation by autumn 2010 in a move toward the company's full-scale entry into the lithium-ion secondary battery market. The new plant, to be built within the company's Nagasaki Shipyard & Machinery Works, will have a production capacity of 66 MWh (megawatt hours) of batteries a year, which is equivalent to 400,000 medium-size cells. The batteries were developed in a 20-year-long joint research and development project with Kyushu Electric Power Co., Inc.
To date MHI has supplied the batteries for sample use, but now it has opted to place them on the market. The company looks to promote lithium-ion secondary battery business through a company wide initiative and will begin by incorporating the batteries into its various products, such as forklift trucks and wind turbine power generation systems. In conjunction with this initiative, MHI will launch a new Joint Lithium Battery Operations Department effective October 1st. MHI and Kyushu Electric Power launched joint research and development into large-size batteries for electric power storage in 1988, and successfully developed compact batteries capable of supplying substantial power over long periods. Those batteries are a medium-size cell with energy capacity of 165 Wh (watt-hours), mainly used in vehicles, and a large-size stationary-use battery cell with 350 Wh. The commercial production verification plant, slated for construction start up this fall, will utilize technologies from MHI's diversified business areas, including technologies related to slurry preparation, coating, and mass-production management know how from turbocharger production. The plant will serve to verify and improve factors essential for commercial production, such as verification of operation rates, tact time, battery performance and cost target. MHI's lithium-ion secondary battery business plan calls for the construction of another full-scale commercial plant once all-out entry into the business is decided. The company will make its decision in 2011 taking the market situation, future prospects, and verification results into account. The new Joint Lithium Battery Operations Department will encompass staff members from the Power Systems Headquarters and the General Machinery & Special Vehicle Headquarters and will be charged with integrally advancing product planning and commercialization. Technical Headquarters, the Production System Innovation Planning Department and the Sustainability Energy & Environment Strategic Planning Department will also provide support. Besides producing the new batteries, MHI aims, by leveraging its abundant system development know-how, to enhance their value by incorporating them into the company's final products and systems. Specifically, for vehicle applications MHI will mount the batteries on its newly developing hybrid forklift trucks. The company also plans to provide its lithium-ion secondary batteries to affiliated companies and to supply them to other companies for installation in their products as a power train. For stationary use, MHI will incorporate the batteries as electric power storage units enabling stabilization of electricity supply from renewable energy grid systems, such as wind power and photovoltaic power generation. It also will consider, together with Kyushu Electric Power, applications in the emergency power source systems of the electricity providers, as well as an environmental-friendly independent power source at work site and a power source for micro electricity grids on remote islands. Demand for lithium-ion secondary batteries, which boast superior power storage capability, is expected to increase sharply from 2010 in tandem with further strengthening of environmental regulations. Domestic battery manufacturers will increase their production, expecting demands largely coming from applications in hybrid cars and electric vehicles initially. MHI, as a comprehensive manufacturer of energy-related machinery, looks to further contribute to the establishment of an energy-saving society by focusing on electric power storage, particularly for industrial applications, in addition to further enhancing its existing systems in areas such as high-efficiency power generation and renewable energy utilization."

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