Inpex Holdings to Buy 15% Stake in Li-ion Maker Eliiy Power; Focus on Storage Systems for Solar Power
28 April 2009
Inpex Holdings Inc. will spend just under ¥2 billion (US$20.8 million) to acquire a 15% stake (3,076,000 shares at ¥650 per share) of Eliiy Power, a maker of large-format lithium-ion batteries primarily owned by Sharp, Daiwa House Industry Co. and Dai Nippon Printing Co.
Eliiy Power Co., is planning to build a new factory near Tokyo by March 2010 to mass produce batteries for solar power systems.
| 50 Ah Li-ion cell (left) and module (right). Click to enlarge. |
In May 2008, Eliiy and Sharp showed two prototypes of a residential power system: a 90W system that combined 1.024 kWh of battery with a 1 sheet 90W solar membrane module and a 360W system that combined four solar modules with 4.096 kWh of battery storage.
Inpex is also participating in the Japan-GTL consortium. (Earlier post.)
It seems like for fixed installations glass mat wound SLA batteries would do just fine. When it comes to large wind and solar at less than 20% of nominal grid usage, there always seems to be a need for the power real time.
Posted by: SJC | 28 April 2009 at 04:36 PM