News

Proof the five-year-old company has made the big time came during the Super Bowl when it's 30-second ad aired during the game. More affirmation of HomeAway's success comes in the TIME magazine article which features several Central Texas based businesses as proof of the current strength of the Austin economy.

"Austin in particular it is a magnet for investment and the best and brightest people who want to move to move to a place that's as wonderful as Austin," said Shepherd.

"All of the features around Austin, all the music and the water and the outside and the stuff to do makes Austin a great place to live which makes it easier to build a company because people want to live here," said Michael Breen.

Breen is the founder of Xtreme Power, also featured in the TIME article. Xtreme Power takes and stores the variable electricity generated by renewable sources like wind and solar and then distributes it back into the grid.

"You couldn't have done this without the deep, deep technology roots that Austin has," said Breen.

Austin Mayor Pro Tem Mike Martinez says the article does a good job of highlighting the diversity of the Austin job market, which he says is key to succeeding in tough economic times.

"These are all different types of jobs that speak to a different audience but they all put money into the local economy, people buys homes, they buy their goods and services here, it has a positive impact," said Martinez.

Martinez was quick to point out that Austin is not without it's problems. He says some people remain out of work, and the East side is hurting, but he says there needs to be a time to stop and smell the roses and celebrate what's good about Austin and he says the TIME article helps to do just that.

Source: http://www.kvue.com/news/Austins-healthy-economy-is-featured-in-upcoming-TIME-article--89226342.html

It is seeking to raise up to US$475m to help fund the retooling of a closed Ford Motor factory in Michigan, as part of a joint venture with Clairvoyant Energy with the aim of producing 2000MW of batteries a year. Xtreme Power has stated that the batteries would cost about one-tenth of comparable lithium-ion systems and their modular set-up allows individual installations to scale up to 100MW.

Or at least part of the future. Five and a half years ago, the lights went on at Xtreme Power with half a dozen employees and a vision to make wind power an easier sell. One of the big stumbling blocks in persuading utilities to buy wind is its unpredictability. The wind blows, and then it stops, while utilities' customers demand a constant flow of power. Xtreme's solution: a shipping-container-size power-management system that takes in energy from wind farms, stores it and then smoothly releases an uninterrupted supply of it out the other end.

That innovation carries real economic value. Wind-farm operators want to sell more power, and they'll pay for something that helps them do that. As a result, jobs are created. Xtreme, which employed 57 people at the beginning of 2009, installed its first major system in Hawaii over the summer and now has $100 million worth of orders in the pipeline. The firm currently employs 105 people and is again looking to grow. Its plan is to buy a factory in Wixom, Mich., that Ford shut down in 2007.

It's the dream scenario of the green-technology revolution: a plant that used to make Lincoln Continentals starts churning out the mechanical apparatus of wind-power storage. Michigan autoworkers, knocked off their feet by a collapsing industry, put their skills to use in the quintessential "industry of tomorrow." Once those high-value manufacturing jobs are in place and a group of workers has money to spend, other jobs follow — at doughnut shops, hair salons, real estate brokerages and law firms...

Located on the island of Oahu, the Kahuku wind farm will contribute to Hawaii’s Clean Energy Initiative goal of meeting 70% of the state’s energy needs with clean energy by 2030. Currently, each island relies on isolated electric grids that burn imported oil, to generate 90% of the state’s electricity. By harnessing wind power, the project is will supply electricity to 7700 homes and avoid emission of 160 million pounds of CO2.

The Kahuku wind farm project is in the final permitting stages. Construction will start after the Hawaii Public Utilities Commission approves the project and the DoE guaranteed funding is in place.

First Wind will incorporate a 15 MVA, 10 MWh battery storage system to enhance load stability. Developed by Xtreme Power of Texas, the battery system will store power from the wind turbines and provide 10 MW of capacity for one hour during periods of low wind speeds.

The project will install 2.5 MW wind turbines manufactured by Clipper Liberty in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. They are the largest wind turbines made in North America.

“Given today’s difficult financing environment for these types of projects, the loan guarantee will be an important part in securing the necessary financing to build this next-generation wind energy project, which will create jobs, generate clean power for the people of Oahu, and help Hawaii gain greater energy independence,” says Paul Gaynor of First Wind.

“In addition, we believe Kahuku Wind will demonstrate the tremendous potential for battery storage solutions to maximise the efficiency of utility-scale wind projects by smoothing output and providing some energy at off-peak times.”

First Wind built and currently operates Hawaii’s largest wind energy facility, the 30 MW Kaheawa wind farm in Maui, which serves 9% of the island’s electricity needs with renewable energy.

As part of the Kaheawa project, First Wind implemented a Habitat Conservation Plan and the Kahuku project will also feature a plan so that endangered species can be protected near the project.

DoE's Loan Programs Office manages the green energy loan portfolio and is authorised to issue loan guarantees under the Energy Policy Act of 2005 for eligible projects which avoid or reduce anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases and employ new or significantly-improved technologies as compared to technologies in service in the United States at the time the guarantee is issued.

To date, DoE has conditionally offered or closed 12 loans or loan guarantees. According to estimates from the recipient companies, their projects will collectively create 50,000 jobs and lead to the capacity to produce 3 GW of clean power.

Other projects supported by DoE’s Loan Guarantee Program Office include:

• US$535m to Solyndra to manufacture cylindrical solar photovoltaic panels
• US$1.4 billion to BrightSource Energy to construct three utility-scale concentrated solar power plants
• US$16m to Nordic Windpower USA to expand an assembly plant to produce its 1 MW wind turbine
• US$43m to Beacon Power to construct its 20 MW flywheel energy storage plant
• US$245m for an activated carbon manufacturing facility
• US$8.33bn for construction of two new nuclear reactors
• US$72m for a manufacturing facility to produce window technology
• US$5.9bn to Ford Motor to transform factories to produce fuel efficient models
• US$1.4bn to Nissan to produce electric cars and battery packs in Tennessee
• US$465m to build the Tesla Model S sedan
• US$529m to develop plug-in hybrids

Source: http://www.renewableenergyfocus.com/view/7869/hawaii-wind-farm-receives-us117m/

The developer of the project, First Wind, just got a $117 million Department of Energy loan guarantee for the project, and Xtreme Power says it will be managing not only its battery, but the entire wind farm’s output via a home-built smart grid network.

Xtreme’s PowerCell chemistry was born in a 1990’s joint venture of Ford Aerospace and defense contractor Tracor that was shelved after its target market — California’s zero-emissions vehicle fleet — collapsed in the wake of the state’s decision to back off its ZEV mandate. Xtreme, backed by about $25 million from investors including Sail Venture Partners and the state-run Texas Emerging Technology Fund, bought the technology in 2004 and put its first 500-kilowatt PowerCell in place at the South Pole Telescope, an extreme environment to be sure, in 2007. Since then, it has also tested a 1.5-megawatt PowerCell at another 30-megawatt wind project on the island of Maui.

Xtreme has made some extreme claims for its technology. According to CEO Carlos Coe, PowerCells act more like capacitors, charging and discharging at high speeds, while at the same time keeping the qualities that make batteries better than capacitors for long-term energy storage. Combined with Xtreme’s own power electronics, PowerCells can yield a 90-percent or better “AC-to-AC” energy efficiency, he said — that is, a measure of the input and output of grid-friendly alternating current from the system, rather than the direct current that batteries actually accept and provide. The PowerCells also have deep discharge capability combined with long cycle life, and Xtreme is also working on a line of portable batteries, he said. As with all new battery technologies, the proof will be in the deployments, with close attention being paid to how long, and for how many cycles of varying depths, the systems can operate before degrading.

Coe wouldn’t give any price figures for the PowerCell, saying that costs vary too much from project to project, not to mention application to application. But Sam Jaffe, analyst at IDC Energy Insights, said that Xtreme has been targeting $500 per kilowatt-hour as a profitable price point for grid storage systems, though he expects the Hawaii projects to exceed that, given their novelty.

At $500 per kilowatt-hour that compares well to costs of about $800 per kilowatt-hour for sodium-sulfur batteries, the primary battery technology now widely deployed for grid backup, or between $622 to $1,500 for flow batteries, another technology competing for grid-scale markets, Jaffe said. (Pumped hydro and compressed air energy storage are cheaper, but require hard-to-find canyons to dam and fill up with water, or underground caverns to fill with air, while batteries can be placed next to wind farms or at utility substations.)

As for lithium-ion, it hasn’t been deployed for grid storage at a wide scale, although projects are being planed — Southern California Edison got a DOE stimulus grant to back up wind farms with an 8-megawatt lithium ion battery from A123 Systems, for example.

The lithium ion battery industry could be scaling up to the point where it can compete at grid power — laptop-sized lithium ion batteries are available for about $250 per kilowatt-hour. But Jaffe noted that putting together a megawatt-sized lithium-ion battery is a much greater challenge when it comes to one of the main drawbacks to that chemistry, its potential for thermal runaway. Xtreme Power’s batteries, on the other hand, work at room temperature, Coe said.

There’s one thing for sure — as solar and wind power grow, they’ll place bigger demands on the grid to absorb their on-again, off-again power. Experts including Energy Secretary Steven Chu say storage will play a critical role in the country’s renewable energy growth, and DOE has targeted energy storage for $120 million of its $4 billion in smart grid stimulus grants. A California energy storage bill that would require utilities to store about 5 percent of their peak generation capacity by 2020 could be the start of increasing requirements that renewable power projects back themselves up with storage of some kind, Coe noted.

Island grids pose particular challenges to integrating big amounts of wind power, Coe said. First, they need to clean up the power to grid quality through power electronics. Then, they need power to “up-ramp and down-ramp” through the times where the wind dies down and picks up again — a cushion of sorts against big fluctuations that would otherwise require firing up fossil-fueled generators. Most wind farms today have natural gas-fired power plants standing by to cover those fluctuations. Hawaii, on the other hand, generates 90 percent of its power from burning oil.

Eventually, if you’ve got a big enough battery, you can shift loads, Coe said — storing power at night, when the wind tends to blow the hardest, and putting it back onto the grid in the afternoon, when power consumption tends to reach its peak. Today’s wind farms tend to manage all of these tasks separately, if at all, Coe said.

Coe added that Xtreme will also be providing a smart grid network management system for the utility, Hawaiian Electric Company, to manage the wind farm, PowerCell storage device and all. Building batteries might seem like enough for a company with some $25 million in funding, but Jaffe said that anyone making grid batteries better be finding ways to link them up with utility’s control systems, both legacy and “smart grid” enabled, in ways that make them trouble-free to operate as part of the overall grid system.

Xtreme is nothing if not big in its ambitions — the company is seeking financing for a $425 million plant to roll out an eventual 2,000 megawatts of batteries per year, and has gotten state backing to build it on an old Ford Motor Co. site in Wixom, Mich.. Solar developer Clairvoyant Energy expects to build a solar panel plant, using Oerlikon Solar equipment, on the same site. Coe said that Xtreme and Clairvoyant are working on integrating solar and storage, though he wouldn’t provide details.

Source: http://earth2tech.com/2010/03/09/xtreme-power-a-super-battery-for-hawaiian-wind-farms/