About ENERGY STORAGE - For the Future!
Lars Jacobsson is a CEO who earned his
money as an oil contractor, but chose to
invest the money from oil in a technology
of the future. Today he is involved in
developing alternative battery technologies
without lithium and cobalt in the company
Texel.
His company got sole control of battery
technology when Trump focused on coal and oil
The technology has come so far that the
days of the oil industry are counted.
What does Kockums, Ford motors and the technology
behind the hydrogen bomb has in common, which also
links to Gothenburg?
Answer: On Kungsgatan (a street in Gothenburg) there
is the company, Texel, which in September last year
was appointed by the US Department of Energy as one
of the best battery technicians to be able to replace
lithium batteries on a large scale.
Their battery solution consists of a
combination of Stirling engines, developed
by Kockums and Ford, and a thermochemical
battery that can store thermal energy,
developed by the same laboratory in the
US that once developed the hydrogen bomb.
Lars Jacobsson is CEO of the company. He has a
background as an oil contractor, but chose to invest
the money from oil in a technology of the future.
How come this technology ended up with
you?
- My focus has been heat radiation from the
sun, and how to convert it into electricity.
I have been with and founded several companies
that focus on it, but have always said that it
is not enough - you have to be able to store
and supply the energy around the clock.
So in 2010 I started a company called United
Sun Systems, which today is Texel, and started
to buy a lot of different technology to look
at opportunities to store thermal energy and
convert it into electricity. When I started
looking for battery technology, we did not
look at lithium, but instead of heat batteries,
since our input was just heat. In 2012, we
bought what was then the world's largest
thermal solar plant, in Arizona. Then we
started to look around the world to find out
which researchers, labs or universities could
best solve the storage problem. At this time,
few people cared about energy storage.
But we found a laboratory in South Carolina
that also invented the hydrogen bomb on behalf
of President Truman. This led them to become
leaders in hydrogen research and thermal energy
today. They had succeeded in researching a
thermochemical battery technology. So we started
negotiating with the US Department of Energy to
get exclusive rights to this battery.
How come the US state allows a Swedish
company exclusive rights to such technology?
- When we started negotiating to get exclusive
rights to this battery, Obama was still president.
Then they said "no, you will never have exclusive
rights to American top technology". But when
Donald Trump became president, the air went out
of all labs that had something to do with
renewables. Now investments should be in coal
and oil again. We took up the negotiations again
in order to gain exclusive rights to the battery,
and above all a future collaboration with the
laboratory where we can develop this together.
In February last year, we were able to sign an
exclusive agreement on battery technology.
Explain as easy as possible - how does
your battery work?
- It is a thermo chemical battery, that is, it
stores heat energy in chemical form. That was
the laboratory's part of it all - how to pump
some kind of thermal energy, such as electricity
from the sun or wind turbines, convert it into
heat without losses and then store it as
chemical thermal energy for up to a hundred years.
But what comes out after the hundred years is
still just heat. It is only when you add the
Stirling engine, which converts the heat into
electricity, that it becomes a product that can
benefit from replacing fossil fuels. It is the
combination of the techniques that is our input
in the whole.
What is the advantage of this technology,
compared to other battery types?
- There are a lot of different things you chase
in battery technology, which we want to learn
more about. One is high energy density, where we
have such a high density that within a few years
we will surpass lithium batteries technology.
Then, of course, it is price. If you have to
store large-scale energy, such as all solar
energy in California, then the price must go
down. In some large-scale applications, we are
up to 90 percent cheaper than lithium, perhaps
more. Then we have this that our battery does
not consume limited resources, the battery works
for about 40 years, when those years have passed
we can turn it into a new battery, and we do not
run out of cobalt for example. All this meant
that last September we were named "The success
story Beyond Lithium-Ion" by the US Department
of Energy, at the world's largest energy storage
conference in Silicon Valley.
What disadvantages or limitations does
your battery have?
- We can never make a battery that is so small
that it can be used in a phone or a computer. It
is limited down in size, while lithium batteries
are limited upwards, so they fit well together.
- Then we see no direct technical disadvantages,
but the difficulties we have before us are to
industrialize at a high pace. Since we signed the
agreements in the US, we have become very
American. But we could use a very large part of
the subcontracting systems found in, for example,
Gothenburg in the automotive industry, to build
our system in the future.
Talking about the challenges of batteries,
it is often focused on how the car
industry will solve the problem, but is
that not what you mainly aim at?
- Our first focus is not cars, but energy storage
on a grander scale. We are negotiating with
energy companies in California where a limit has
been reached. They produce too much solar energy
in the middle of the day, the more production
the cheaper the price becomes and you no longer
get paid for your surplus energy during the day.
We take the produced energy and move it over to
when demand is greatest, which is in the evening
when people come home.
You have a background in oil storage. Has
it felt like a big step to move from oil
to renewable energy?
- 18 years ago it may have been a big step, but
today I think it feels very natural. The
technology has come so far that the days of the
oil world are counted.
Renewable energy is becoming cheaper and cheaper,
and the only thing holding back it is the energy
storage possibilities, so that you can deliver
cheap solar and wind energy even when the sun is
not shining or when the wind is not blowing.
That's where my focus lies. Solving that problem
would mean the death blow to the oil industry.
Lars Jacobsson about…
… That Sweden and Gothenburg need to
invest in new technology
When I was a kid there were shipyards where we
built ships, then they went bankrupt and we built
cars instead. We know that developments goes in
cycles, and we have to keep on top. There is a
risk that we will end up behind, we cannot live
only with car industry in the future, we should
not miss another solar or wind power race.
… On financial interests over commitment
I do not think that we will manage the
transformation unless it is profitable, unless
I can tell our investors that they will make
money. With ordinary people you find a greater
commitment, but with the large asset managers,
they are much more interested in it being
profitable. Sad, but that's the way it is.
... To solve the big problems first
There is a lot of talk about flying, and flying
is one of the hardest nuts to crack, but a small
part of the carbon dioxide stems from it.
Electricity and heat account for 35 to 40 percent.
We have to deal with the big problems first. Then
we can maybe solve the problems of flight.
… The company has an exciting technology with
great potential. there is also an exciting
situation - last year (2018) the plans for
going public with United Sun Systems were
canceled as the praise from the US Department of
Energy was received and the name changed to Texel.
Now the next goal is large-scale industrialization.
Todde
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