Duke Energy CEO Jim Rogers On The Future Of Coal, Nuclear, And The Energy Industry

What have been some of the biggest challenges of running a massive utility?

In the five years since I've been at Duke, our biggest challenges have been several things. One is the recognition that after 50 years, the real price of electricity is going to rise because of tighter regulations on coal plants and the recognition that we have to restrict carbon. [After the merger] we will be [one of the] largest emitters of CO2 in the U.S. We have a special responsibility to lead on that issue.

We will have to retire and replace virtually every plant by 2050. In a sense, that gives us a blank sheet of paper. What will we build in the future? One of our challenges is going to be to try to position the company to totally remake its system of generation and at the same time modernize our grid, which effectively means going from an analogue grid to a digital grid.

What do you believe the energy mix will look like in the coming decades?

Over the last 20 years we have started using coal in a cleaner way. But there needs to be more technological development to use it in a low carbon world. Is this carbon capture and storage (CCS)? Is it a system to use algae to capture carbon and accelerate the growth of algae and then use it as a biofuel? I think CCS will play a role particularly if utilities are in a region where the geography works, but that's predominantly in the Midwest. The ultimate solution to [make coal more sustainable] is to recycle the carbon. We have relationships with a number of Chinese companies, and they're actually more focused on how you recycle the carbon rather than storing it. On some level, it seems like a more sustainable practice to take it and reuse it rather than store it in the ground.

So you do still believe coal will play an important part of the energy mix in the future?

By 2030 coal will still be here and be used, but in the longer term, with the realization that we will have carbon constraints, the question is whether the technology will evolve to allow coal to remain a [clean] alternative. Whether or not these technologies will be here in 2050 is a function of how well we can develop technology to reduce their emissions footprint. With respect to renewables, how fast can we bring down the cost of solar and wind in a way that we don't need subsidies?

Do you think solar and wind will become cheap enough to compete with traditional energy sources?

I do. [The price of] wind has come down rather dramatically. What's going to drive down the cost of solar--although I don't believe Moore's Law applies to solar--if you look at the Chinese who are leading the world in solar panel production, wind turbine production, and probably lead the world in the development of batteries ...the Chinese are developing the intellectual property of scaling, and that in itself is what creates value. The Chinese are going to find a way to scale this, and as they scale this, they will drive the costs down. I am confident that over the next two to three decades you're going to see prices come down pretty dramatically.

What about the future of nuclear plants?

We will have to retire and replace every [Duke Energy] nuclear plant by 2050. Lets start with the simple assumption that 70% of [low-carbon] electricity today comes from nuclear. If we had to replace that with gas...it would have a fairly detrimental impact with respect to climate. Two things give me hope. One is evolving technologies, the second is development of modular nuclear technology.

When I look at nuclear, I look at it both as modular as well as large plants in the future. I believe we have to solve the spent fuel issue. The question is whether we store it or recycle it. My judgment is that we'll find a way to recycle it. So [nuclear] will play a role, and it's kind of hard now to really predict the role. I mean, that's what makes this puzzle so interesting, because we know what the pieces are, we kind of have inklings of what some of the shapes of the pieces will be tomorrow, but to put the map together of what the mix will be--it's a pretty intriguing exercise. We've got to do it. We don't have a choice.

What are some of the new energy technologies that will be prevalent in the future that aren't so well known today?

If I knew that I'd be taking money and making bets. I think modular nuclear as a group will be breakout. I think there are going to be breakthroughs in solar technology. I think in the long run solar will trump wind because solar can be distributed [on rooftops] and also I think will be more efficient than wind turbines over time for a variety of different reasons.

I think battery technology will be transformative, not just with respect to intermittent sources of power, but also it has a fundamental impact on how the grid actually operates. I'm following very closely what BYD is doing. I think zinc air [battery technology] is kind of interesting because [the cells] become grid storage, which I think is important.

These are some of the areas that I think will evolve. The only question is which ones will be lowest cost and most efficient. We're at a very important point, I believe. I wish I could be a CEO for another 23 years. The technologies are coming together and are evolving. Some are clearer than others. I've always told people particularly recently that we're a technology company disguised as a utility.

Link

BYD Zinc-Air Battery

Notes: Thanks to Yahoo Msg Board

Bill Joy: Better batteries key to Green power adoption

Kleiner Perkins' Green guru believes on a household level, green power needs to recharge advanced batteries rather than plug right into the fuse-box.

Bill Joy of Kleiner Perkins. Credit: Russ Curtis

FORTUNE -- Having helped both create the Java programming language and co-found Sun Microsystems, Bill Joy is best known as a technologist and entrepreneur. He hopes to add environmentalist to that list.

As a partner at leading venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins, Joy is devoting much of his time to overseeing Kleiner's portfolio of nearly 60 green start-ups.  He spoke at Fortune's Brainstorm Green conference about what green technologies he believes are most likely to work, and why.

Joy is a believer in wind, or perhaps more accurately, micro-wind.  The big problem with wind power to date, he said, is that small windmills cost far more per watt generated than do large wind farms with giant turbines and huge blades—sometime ten times as much. "The smaller wind gets the more expensive it gets," Joy said.

That gap can be closed, or at least greatly narrowed, Joy argued, just the way that better technology allowed microprocessors to replace mainframes, shrinking the physical computer and the cost of computing at the same time. FloDesign, a company that Kleiner Perkins has backed, has used a new design based on airplane engines, fundamentally changing the aerodynamics and, Joy says, the economics.

That company's product won a design award for and earlier version of product three years ago, but despite the slow development Joy remains jazzed on the potential.

A pair of Joy's other green goals: "The ability to store and retrieve electrons at low cost [and] the ability to make them distributed and cheap."

If consumers can generate cheaper wind or solar power on their own property, he said, the next key will be matching that power with when it's actually needed.  That means better batteries. "The grid moves things in space, batteries move things in time," Joy said.

Again the problem is scale. Systems to store green power by pumping water uphill then releasing it to generate power when its needed work in industrial settings, but not in a private home. Joy sees a few different viable options for personal power storage.

The first small-scale option is using compressed air to store and release power, Joy said.  Another: build  a cheaper twist on today's lithium ion batteries. The trick, he says, is building slightly larger batteries than you'd find in a laptop and using water as the electrolyte.

One green disappointment for Joy: a failure to build a breakthrough desalination process that could cheaply turn seawater into drinking water.  The stumbling block he said, is that there so far has been no way around using heat to power the process. "Anybody who's worked with hot salt water knows how corrosive and nasty a thing it is."

Joy is still optimistic about water purification technology.  With the desalination dream on hold, he has devoted more effort to reclaiming "used" water, which might come with more bacteria than sea water, but doesn't have all the nasty salt.

Link to the Article

Storing Solar and Wind Power Is a Base-Load Conundrum

Here in Colorado we have an abundance of both sun and wind, so it's no surprise that our stateRenewable Portfolio Standard was recently raised to 30 percent by the year 2020, from the 10 percent that was enacted in 2004 by constitutional amendment.

So with the excellent solar and wind resources here, why not increase our RPS to 50 percent, 80 percent or even 100 percent?

The problem is “base load.” That's the minimum amount of power that must be available from the utility at all times, and it changes with daily and hourly predictions based on historical data and current trends.

Unfortunately, the sun isn't always shining and the wind isn't always blowing, so 24/7/365 energy sources are always required.

Hydroelectric generation is a renewable base-load option in some areas, but Colorado doesn't have much of a hydro resource. Coal- and nuclear-fired power plants are the most common base-load generation sources throughout the United States, because they are cheap to operate and consume inexpensive fuel.

When energy needs spike (such as during a hot summer day when everyone turns on their air conditioners, or on a cold winter night when electric heaters are running full blast) utilities turn to “peaking” generation systems that can be spun up and generating within minutes.

You can't just flip the “on” switch to get a coal or nuclear generator working — they take hours or even days to fire up from cold to producing energy. Hydroelectric plant operators can quickly increase the water flow and the number of generators operating, but only if there's enough water available at the time. In most areas, natural gas turbines are used to handle peaking loads, but the fuel is too expensive to use for providing constant base-load capacity.

Energy Storage

The answer to using solar or wind for utility base load seems obvious. Just store any excess energy produced and release it when the renewables are not generating, just like in an off-grid home. All you need is a really big battery! Therein lies the rub.

Until recently, America's biggest battery was located in Fairbanks, Alaska. Called “BESS” (Battery Electric Storage System), it was built and installed by the ABB Group for the Golden Valley Electrical Association in 2003 at a cost of $35 million. This half-acre, 1,435-ton battery bank provides 27 megawatts of base-load backup power for GVEA's 90,000 customers in the event that grid power from Anchorage is interrupted. Unfortunately, BESS can only do that for 15 minutes — just long enough to get Fairbanks' diesel backup generators spun up and on line.

The town of Presidio, Texas, also had a problem — frequent blackouts due to the now-undersized 1940s-vintage transmission lines still feeding the town. Extra energy could be purchased from Mexico, but with hours-long blackouts common, changes were made. In April 2010, Electric Transmission Texas put “BOB” (Big Ol' Battery) into commission. BOB weighs over 320 tons, costs about $25 million, and can provide 4 megawatts of base-load power to Presidio for about eight hours.

PHOTO COURTESY OF NASA
One space-age storage solution is using
flywheels that spin inside chambers kept at
a near-vacuum to reduce friction, above.
Although that remains a very high-tech and
expensive possibility on a utility scale for
base-load storage, there are hopes for its
usefulness in the future.
 

Those battery numbers are all pretty depressing when viewed in a cost-vs.-storage capacity perspective. Right now, the only other real storage option on a utility scale is hydroelectric — excess generation powers giant pumps that move massive amounts of water up a steep hill to a large reservoir, to be released through hydro turbines to generate electricity again when peaking generation is needed. The problem with this method is that the efficiency is dismal, with close to 70 percent of the incoming energy wasted.

Battery technology is rapidly improving, thanks in part to greater public interest in plug-in electric vehicles. BOB in Texas employs new technology, sodium-sulphur cells, instead of the more traditional nickel-cadmium cells used in BESS. But the cost per kilowatt-hour of electrochemical energy storage remains tremendously high, especially when compared to current methods that store the most amount of energy for the least cost — a lump of coal, uranium pellets, or a barrel of oil. Are there other options?

The future

Certain recent industrial-scale solar energy projects employ some energy storage. These solar thermal plants use mirrors to heat molten salts, which are used to flash water into steam and power conventional steam turbine generators. The salts hold heat for quite some time, and the turbines continue to run after the sun sets. While this represents great progress, it's still tricky. The storage part of the system is far more complex and expensive than the generation side, and heat cannot be stored long enough to provide a source of base-load capacity.

Of course hydrogen production, storage and generation have been touted for many years, and these might well be our future for energy storage. The “hydrogen economy” hype of the past few years has died down, though, mostly because hydrogen is notoriously difficult and inefficient to produce, store and use. It can escape through the tiniest gaps, it turns regular steel unsafely brittle and is explosive when mixed in the right proportion with air. These problems will all be solved — eventually — but at great cost and over a long time frame.

Compressed air energy storage on a large scale has been discussed too, but suffers similar technology cost and efficiency problems.

Flywheel energy storage has recently received media attention, and with good reason. Spin a heavy wheel up to tens of thousands of RPM in a near vacuum to reduce air friction and float it on magnetic levitation bearings, and you have a formidable energy storage system. But flywheel storage remains a very high-tech and expensive possibility on a utility scale for base-load storage. It's currently used only in specialized applications.

A better mousetrap?

As I sit here 11 miles off the grid and gaze at my (literally) ton of home backup batteries, the thought crosses my mind that I'm looking at 1915-era technology — and that it's still the most efficient, cost-effective choice for me. And when I float in Pinewood Reservoir with my fly rod each summer, it occurs to me that this massive, inefficient pump, water storage and hydro turbine system is about the most efficient and cost-effective way for the utility to store its energy, too.

It's a good bet that future utility-scale, renewable energy storage systems will use some variation of the methods we have already imagined. Scientists understand the basic laws of physics pretty well these days. The winner won't be the company that invents the most high-tech and efficient energy storage mousetrap — it will be the company that builds the one that stores the most energy at the lowest cost.

Link to the Article

Interview with BYD's 王建钧

《中国经济和信息化》：比亚迪与戴姆勒的合资在比亚迪的战略发展中有什么意义？

　　王建钧：这应该算是一笔交易。首先，在这笔交易中知识产权是平等的，双方会建立一个全新的品牌，这个品牌由比亚迪和戴姆勒共同拥有；其次，双方合资的比例是平等的，各自出资50%；最后，董事长由外资方担任，总经理则是比亚迪股份有限公司副总裁廉玉波。外资方将派出几十位工程师参与项目的运作。新品牌和新车型都在讨论之中，三年内将会推出全新的高端电动汽车。

　　说到意义，比亚迪与戴姆勒的合资对比亚迪品牌的提升有很大的作用。2009年以前，比亚迪在新能源汽车方面做了很多努力，却没有得到国家和业界认同。自从2009年国家认同了电动汽车的技术路径以后，比亚迪在新能源方面，尤其是电池、电控领域已经积累了一定的优势。这次戴姆勒看中的就是比亚迪的这些优势。

　　很多人问我们，为什么不去宣传和戴姆勒的合作。我们自己不刻意去讲，由外方讲反而更容易被大家理解。这次和戴姆勒的合作，是戴姆勒先在欧洲日内瓦车展前期宣布的，我们在之后才宣布。

　　我们企业还是比较有中国传统的风格的，做了一些事后希望得到大家的认可。也许事情做出来之后大家会有这样或那样的议论，我们也认为这是正常的。各种声音的存在有利于公司和产业的发展。一个公司从平庸走向伟大必须要有这样的经历。

　　《中国经济和信息化》：合资的背后有什么故事吗？

　　王建钧：戴姆勒中国公司买了很多品牌的各种车型的车，其中也有我们的，经过综合对比之后，他们认为比亚迪汽车的品质以及其他综合性能是有吸引力的。我们和戴姆勒在经历了一段时间的接触和相互了解后，达成了现在的合作意向。

　　《中国经济和信息化》：比亚迪做新能源汽车这么多年，我们也确实能感觉到不容易，请问一下，比亚迪做新能源汽车的路线是什么？

　　王建钧：首先，我们坚持电动技术优先。比亚迪是做电池起家的，我们会坚持在电池方面不断创新。其次，我们还会根据市场的需求进行选择。我们为什么没有直接推出纯电动车而是推出油电混合的双模车，就是希望根据市场的需求做一个适当的过渡。在选择试点城市和使用环境时，我们选择了深圳的出租车市场，因为出租车的使用频率要比私家车高3～4倍，能够使电动车得到充分的使用和推广。

　　《中国经济和信息化》：怎样看待“新能源汽车央企大联盟”的成立？

　　王建钧：在新能源汽车方面，参与的企业越多，对国家政策和消费者的影响就越大。一些很重要的央企参与进来，这更是一件好事，他们的话语权要远远高于比亚迪这样的民营企业。这么多的企业参与进来，对新能源汽车的发展非常有利，至少在商业推广上对比亚迪来说是一个有力支撑。

　　《中国经济和信息化》：新能源汽车推广的难点在哪里？

　　王建钧：国家在新能源汽车政策方面已经做了大量的工作，现在我们企业也需要推进。新能源汽车在推进过程中对于基础设施，特别是使用环境的要求比较高。

　　《中国经济和信息化》：国资委明确表示，央企联盟是不拒绝民企的，如果央企联盟向比亚迪招手，比亚迪会怎样回应？

　　王建钧：比亚迪在电池供应方面是一个开放的平台，我们愿意为联盟内企业提供电池产品。

　　《中国经济和信息化》：如果央企联盟优先获得国家对新能源汽车的资金支持，比亚迪是否担心大部分的资金流入央企而减少对民营企业的支持力度？

　　王建钧：在资金分配方面，政府面对的不单是央企，也不单是中国企业，它面对的是全球的企业。我相信在市场面前企业都是平等的。

　　《中国经济和信息化》：比亚迪的区域产业布局思路是什么？

　　王建钧：我们是根据对全球及中国市场的感觉来布局的。在研发体系方面，比亚迪根据对研发潮流及全球科技走向的感觉来进行布局；在城市选择方面，我们主要选择在比亚迪以前的基础上有辐射性的城市。同时我们也有一些人工成本上的考虑。当然，这些都要有利于股东权益和公司的长远发展。

　　《中国经济和信息化》：比亚迪遇到困难时找市场还是找市长？

　　王建钧：比亚迪作为一个上市公司，遇到经营方面的困难，大部分还是要靠市场的力量来解决，过多地依赖政府，企业是长不大的。政府真正需要管的是公共资源，比如比亚迪工厂周边的政府配套设施。真正经营上的问题，还是需要企业自己去解决，如果没有企业自身的努力，没有产品的积累，没有核心的技术，那么企业根本走不远。

　　《中国经济和信息化》：比亚迪与南方电网的合作是怎样一个模式？

　　王建钧：主要是比亚迪向南方电网提供一些储能电站。比亚迪是南方电网的供应商，电网的发电端和用户端我们都无法控制，只有中间的变电环节可以协调电网的供应。我们可以利用储能电站使电网变得可控。比如，夜间我们可能把电存在配置好的储能电站里，白天再把它返还给电网。南方电网则利用我们的储能技术，再对电网做一个合理的调控。

　　《中国经济和信息化》： 新能源汽车是比亚迪新能源事业的一环吗？

　　王建钧：比亚迪上市之后，投资汽车是战略性的选择。比亚迪就是太透明了，所以大家觉得我们什么都在做。比亚迪作为一个上市公司，拿到了投资者的钱，就要考虑投资者的收益，力争做好每一个投资项目。2002年比亚迪上市时，我们还在做代工，根据对市场的研究，我们觉得需要做战略上的转型，于是我们选择了做汽车。为什么做汽车呢？因为我们需要选择一个行业，这个行业是要有进入门槛的，玩家要比较少，这些条件对企业进入之后的运营和发展是有好处的。当时的汽车业，特别是乘用车，国家控制的只有十几家，我们买了其中一家，然后把它发展壮大。

　　我们做新能源，是因为我们在电池领域已经发展了十多年。在考虑战略转型时，我们首先要考虑固有的核心技术的延展，它要符合国家的产业政策及产业方向，基于这些原因，我们在选择产业的时候就选择了新能源。另外，比亚迪有技术积累，国家又是鼓励的，我们为什么不做呢？

　　比亚迪是一个非常简单的公司，对技术非常痴迷。同时他又是一个对股东负责任的公司。未来我们也会根据自己的产业发展状况来做，但一定不会离开我们最基础的绿色公司的梦想。我们一直有三大梦想：储能电站、太阳能、电动汽车。这些都是为我们的绿色梦想奠定基础的产业，我们现在的产业是这样，未来如果涉及新的产业也会是这个大思路。

　　《中国经济和信息化》：比亚迪未来有什么样的规划？主营业务包括哪些细分领域？

　　王建钧：我们未来的发展由三大产业组成：手机零部件和整机代工；汽车业务，包括传统汽车和新能源汽车；新能源业务，如家庭能源系统、太阳能板、LED照明等。在汽车领域，我们的目标是到2015年成为中国最大的乘用车制造商。我们对于管理和生产的理解就是越简单越好。

　　《中国经济和信息化》：有消息称比亚迪将进入家电行业，就我们的理解，家电行业已经进入红海了，比亚迪为什么会想进军家电业呢？

　　王建钧：我们还没有进入家电行业，仅仅是有一些市场部门在做调研。远远没有进入公司战略委员会和董事会决策的阶段。比亚迪进入每一个行业都会非常谨慎。比亚迪要进入一个行业，首先要看这个行业竞争对手的多少，是红海还是蓝海，这是一个竞争惨烈程度大小的问题；其次是投资门槛的问题；再次就是消费者能否接受的问题。我们对各方面的因素进行了认真考量，才会决定是否进入一个行业。

　　《中国经济和信息化》：销量带来的压力有没有传导到上游的生产？

　　王建钧：今年1～6月乘用车的销量，进口车要好于国产车，大排量的车要好于小排量的车。1.6L以下排量汽车销量增速今年明显放缓，1.6L以上排量汽车销量增速今年明显高于去年。

　　今年的汽车消费趋于对大排量、大品牌、高端产品的选择，这些对我们是个警示。比亚迪对市场的反应是很迅速的，我们也充分进行了市场研究。我们热销车型的利润空间在下滑，而我们的产能是有限的，需要拿出品质更好的产品。所以，下半年我们主要推出了1.6L以上排量的产品，如M6、I6、L3等，都是1.8～2.0L排量的产品，做工和装饰都有所提升，价格都在10万元以上。

　　这次调整是想推出高附加值的产品，这对于公司的经营及品牌的提升都是有重要意义的。任何公司发展到一定阶段都要面临品牌的问题，这个问题是要及早做准备的。比亚迪以前以小排量经济型轿车为主导产品，现在要向中高端产品延伸。在1.6L排量以上的市场中，排量越大的，自主品牌汽车占有的市场份额越小。

　　比亚迪必须走出一条自己的路，去争夺这个细分市场，使我们的品牌力得到提升。只有这样才能在市场中得到更多的认可。这样的调整早晚要做，早做比晚做好。

　　《中国经济和信息化》：怎么看经销商的抱怨？

　　王建钧：我们和经销商是合作伙伴，利润问题是我们之间不可回避的矛盾。他们这样或者那样的说法，也是为了自身的利益，我们认为有这些说法也是正常的，企业的发展离不开各种批评的声音。

Full Transcript

From Tiananmen Square to Possible Buffett Successor

Twenty-one years ago, Li Lu was a student leader of the Tiananmen Square protests. Now a hedge-fund manager, he is in line to become a successor to Warren Buffett at Berkshire HathawayInc.

Mr. Li, 44 years old, has emerged as a leading candidate to run a chunk of Berkshire's $100 billion portfolio, stemming from a close friendship with Charlie Munger, Berkshire's 86-year-old vice chairman. In an interview, Mr. Munger revealed that Mr. Li was likely to become one of the top Berkshire investment officials. "In my mind, it's a foregone conclusion," Mr. Munger said.

The job of filling Mr. Buffett's shoes is among the most high-profile succession stories in modern corporate history. Mr. Buffett, who will turn 80 in a month, says he has no current plans to step down and will likely split his job after he leaves the company into separate CEO and investing functions. Mr. Li's emergence as a contender to oversee Berkshire investments is the first time a name has been identified to fill the investment part of Mr. Buffett's legendary role.

Mr. Li's big hit began in 2002 when he first invested in BYD, then a fledgling Chinese battery company. Its founder came from humble beginnings and started the company in 1995 with $300,000 of borrowed money.

Mr. Li made an initial investment in BYD soon after its initial public offering on the Hong Kong stock exchange. (BYD trades in the U.S. on the Pink Sheets and was recently quoted at $6.90 a share.)

When he opened the fund, he loaded up again on BYD shares, eventually investing a significant share of the $150 million fund with Mr. Munger in BYD, which already was growing quickly and had bought a bankrupt Chinese automaker. "He bought a little early and more later when the stock fell, which is his nature," Mr. Munger says.

In 2008, Mr. Munger persuaded Mr. Sokol to investigate BYD for Berkshire as well. Mr. Sokol went to China and when he returned, he and Mr. Munger convinced Mr. Buffett to load up on BYD. In September, Berkshire invested $230 million in BYD for a 10% stake in the company.

BYD's business has been on fire. It now has close to one-third of the global market for lithium-ion batteries, used in cell phones. Its bigger plans involve the electric and hybrid-vehicle business.

The test for BYD, one of the largest Chinese car makers, will be whether it can deliver on plans to develop the most effective lithium battery on the market that could become an even bigger source of power in the future. Even more promising is the potential to use the lithium battery to store power from other energy sources like solar and wind.

Says Mr. Munger: "The big lithium battery is a game-changer."

BYD is a big roll of the dice for Mr. Li. He is an informal adviser to the company and owns about 2.5% of the company.

Mr. Li's fund's $40 million investment in BYD is now worth about $400 million. Berkshire's $230 million investment in 2008 now is worth about $1.5 billion. Messrs. Buffett, Munger, Sokol, Li and Microsoft founder and Berkshire Director Bill Gates plan to visit China and BYD in September.

Link to the Article

Batteries Are Included in KB Home and BYD's Solar House

The home of the future – with solar-electric modules on the roof and a lithium-ion battery in the garage – may have a welcome mat out sooner than expected.

The California-based builder KB Home and China's BYD Co., which makes plug-in cars, batteries and solar equipment, have partnered to build modestly priced homes in Lancaster, Calif., that will go a step further than other new solar housing developments by including battery storage of the solar electricity.

Off-grid solar owners for many years have used battery banks to store their generated electricity for later use, but the plan for the KB Home development – smack in the middle of a grid-tied suburban subdivision – could help alter the trajectory for adoption of both solar electricity and plug-in vehicles.

"The energy produced by the solar panels during the peak time is stored in the battery system and can be used later at night for the home," said Bill Wang, business development director for BYD America Corp., at a press conference to announce the partnership in Lancaster, a city about 70 miles north of Los Angeles.

Link to the News

Each home will have solar panels, batteries, LED lights, and other energy-related materials made by BYD Corp., a mainland Chinese company with divisions that make batteries and automobiles.

Storing electricity generated by the solar panels enables homeowners to cut their energy costs and not rely on utility companies, especially during peak times.

“This is the way we can change the world,” said Stella Li, CEO of BYD Electronics, and senior vice president with BYD Corp.

The city played matchmaker to bring KB Homes and BYD together and it took only 45 days for the two companies to work out their arrangement.

That the deal was completed in such a short period of time did not surprise Parris who in his first term has done much to change the culture at City Hall. He treats his position as that of a chief executive: giving everyone a chance to speak, making and decision and doing it.

“I think it will surprise a lot of other people because we’ve gotten to the point where government is seen as an obstacle,” Parris said.

Link to the News

BYD's Future Village

Other Related News

BYD to launch hybrid cars for mass market on Monday
Chinese car and battery maker BYD Co, backed by U.S. billionaire investor Warren Buffett, said it will start sales of plug-in hybrid cars with solar panels to the public in Shenzhen on Monday.


The company said it will go ahead with the plan to sell the car to mass consumers as planned, despite rumours that it might postpone the date while waiting for the government to announce new consumer subsidies for new energy cars.


"There had been some rumours that we might delay," BYD spokesman Paul Lin told Reuters in a telephone interview on Sunday. "This will be an upgraded version of the F3DM that we have sold to government and corporate clients."


BYD's new F3DM is a low emission version with a solar panel on the top of the car, allowing it to run on gasoline, electricity and solar energy.


The solar panel can collect energy for the car in daytime although it is not designed to power the car alone, Lin said.

Link to the News

Chinese car and battery maker BYD Co (1211.HK: Quote, Profile, Research) will buy a plant from a major Japanese metal die manufacturer to enhance its competitive edge in auto production, Japan's Nikkei business daily reported on Saturday.  BYD will take over Ogihara Corp's factory in Tatebayashi, Gunma Prefecture, about 70 km (43 miles) north of Tokyo, on April 1, to manufacture high-precision metal dies for use at its Chinese factories, Nikkei said.  One of Ogihara's four domestic die production bases, the Tatebayashi plant makes dies for hoods and other auto body parts, accounting for some 20 percent of its production capacity at home. Ogihara supplies dies to Japanese and foreign automakers, including General Motors Co [GM.UL]. Its earnings have been sliding due to the yen's rise and weak domestic demand, Nikkei said.

Link to the News

From Solar to Storage, BYD Dreams of Power

A small building complex powered by rooftop solar panels and eight windmills is Wang Chuanfu's favorite venue for meeting fellow executives at BYD.

The two-villa compound at BYD's Pingshan base in eastern Shenzhen is known as the company's Future Village – a zero-emissions model for independent electricity production and storage.

The village is also a model for a key venture tied to BYD's future business plans. Power generated on site from the sun and wind is stored in a unique, BYD-made power-saving unit slightly larger than a refrigerator. All of its solar panels, wind turbines, water purifiers and silicon storage cells were built by BYD as well.

Future Village points to the fact that BYD, under chairman and founder Wang, is quickly moving beyond batteries, IT equipment and carmaking. The company is now using its successful, low-cost, vertically integrated enterprise model for a major foray into renewable energy.

In the past, it was widely thought that U.S. investor Warren Buffett's interest in BYD keyed on electric vehicles. But Future Village suggests the real money will be in energy storage units, according to the general manager of Beijing-based research firm Dragonomics, Arthur Kroeber.

Not coincidentally, Buffett's MidAmerican Energy Holdings has started using BYD's battery package system at an energy storage station in Oregon.

Kroeber thinks BYD's core competitiveness lies in batteries rather than automobiles.

BYD's Storage Strategy

An energy storage unit is essentially a large battery pack. BYD currently makes one such product and plans to add a second to its lineup based on an exclusive "iron battery" technology.

Already available is a cabinet-shaped, 380-volt unit with an output of 200 per kwh. One of these units has been installed at BYD's Future Village to provide outdoor power.

BYD says the unit uses about 1,200 "iron batteries" to store 800 KW of electricity, which could satisfy eight months of consumption for a household of four. The unit has a 20-year lifespan and can be fully charged in four hours.

A future product is a 380-volt energy storage unit with an output of 1 MW per hour and 4,000 kwh of storage capacity. It's now undergoing tests at BYD's research institute and hasn't been released to the public.

Link to the Article

The Far-voyaging Pursuits of BYD

Recent Updates: BYD

SAIC to Adopt Li Battery Stacks of BYD

Shanghai Automotive Industry Corp. (SAIC), one of China's leading automakers, reached accord with BYD Corp., a well-known battery supplier, to purchase the latter's lithium battery stacks, said sources. These battery stacks will be installed on hybrid models under Roewe, a proprietary brand of the automaker, they added. A sales executive with BYD confirmed that his company really signed an agreement with a domestic giant, but declined to tell its name.

Subsidy will help plug-in hybrid sales, BYD says

Chinese battery and vehicle maker BYD Co said it was bullish about sales of its F3DM plug-in hybrid car, after regulators recommended the energy-efficient model as eligible for government subsidies.

China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) recently unveiled the list of a first batch of new-energy vehicle models that have got regulatory approval for production and sale.

According to a statement on the MIIT website, there were five new-energy vehicle models in the list - Nanjing Iveco's electric commercial vehicle, Jianghuai Auto's electric engineering vehicle, JMC's electric service vehicle, Zotye Auto's electric light minibus, and BYD's plug-in hybrid sedan.

"Being the only sedan on the list, we qualify for the highest subsidy level of as much as 50,000 yuan ($7316) per unit. Hence, we are optimistic about the F3DM model's sales to individual customers, which will start next month," said a BYD spokesperson.

BYD added to H-shares

The compiler of Hong Kong's stock indexes said Friday it will make no changes to the constituents of the blue-chip Hang Seng Index but added Chinese battery and electric car maker BYD Co. [s:hk:1211] to the Hang Seng China Enterprises Index, or H-share index, lifting the number of constituents in the share tracker to 44.

Related Article

Another company Buffett recently invested in is BYD, the Chinese battery giant that has released an electric vehicle with a range of 250 miles. Reiten met with BYD executives while in China with Gov. Ted Kulongoski on a trade mission, and those discussions have led to a compelling new collaboration Reiten calls "potentially a game- changer," with super-efficient batteries storing the extra electricity while the wind is humming or the sun is beating down, to transmit it through the system at a later time when it is needed.

"BYD is the No. 1 cell phone battery manufacturing company in the world," says Reiten. "They have staked their company on being the best in terms of batteries and we think there are utility applications."

The partnership could develop into something exciting. Then again, it could flop. Either way, there will be no quick fix to the challenges Reiten and PacifiCorp face. As he lays out his strategy Reiten has a lot to say about a lot of things, but he doesn't say much about coal, which is PacifiCorp's greatest asset and its greatest liability.

Warren Buffet's Big Battery Play

David Sokol, the chairman of an Iowa-based utility holding company called MidAmerican Energy Holdings, which is 80 percent owned by Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway, has for the most part been quieter. But Sokol and MidAmerican Energy have been positioning their business for a low-carbon future. MidAmerican's investments in wind power mean that it generates more power from renewable source than any other regulated utility, as best as I can tell. It was Sokol, at Buffett's request, who engineered MidAmerican's investment in BYD, the Chinese battery-maker and auto company that is building low-cost electric cars. (See Warren Buffett Takes Charge, my story about BYD that ran last month in FORTUNE.) And now there's more news from MidAmerican, and you heard it here first: The company will soon begin testing batteries from BYD that, if all goes well, could store electricity on a large scale at a reasonable cost.

That's a big deal.

Just a few details: This fall, MidAmerican will build a 2 megawatt storage facility using BYD batteries at an existing substation in Portland, Oregon, where it operates the local utility, Pacific Power. BYD, meanwhile, is building a bigger storage facility in China, and plans to build a third one in a still-undisclosed location on in southern California. That's about all I can tell you because BYD is reluctant to talk about its research.

The 2 megawatts of battery storage in Portland will allow MidAmerican to test BYD batteries to see how well they charge, what control systems are needed to discharge the electricity and to analyze their reliability and cost. "It will let us do a fair amount of testing to understand the economics of a 100 or 200 megawatt storage facility to back up wind," Sokol says.

Link to the Article