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Panasonic Corp. (6752) plans to boost sales by about 34 percent during the next five years as it seeks to expand in areas targeted for growth, including its lithium-ion battery business. The consumer electronics company targets 10 trillion yen ($98 billion) in revenue in the 2018 fiscal year, President Kazuhiro Tsuga told reporters in Tokyo yesterday. That compares with the

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Tesla Motors Inc. (TSLA), the electric vehicle maker co-founded by Elon Musk, plans to use only raw materials sourced in North America for its proposed $5 billion U.S. battery factory. The Silicon Valley company won’t look overseas for the graphite, cobalt and other materials needed for its so-called Gigafactory, said Liz Jarvis-Shean, a spokeswoman. “It will enable us to establish

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AES Corp. (AES), the biggest operator of electricity-storage systems, is now seeking to sell batteries big enough to substitute for power plants. The Advancion systems will cost from $10 million to $500 million, depending on size, and will be offered to utilities and renewable-energy developers in arrays as large as 500 megawatts, said Chris Shelton, president of Arlington, Virginia-based AES’s

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A 40-foot trailer loaded with 25 tons of liquid metals may be the solution to the renewable-energy industry’s biggest challenge: making sure electricity is available whenever it’s needed. A Boston-area startup founded by MIT researchers is working to turn this new concept into a commercially viable product, liquid-metal batteries that will store power for less than $500 a kilowatt-hour. That’s

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Researchers from ETH Zurich and Empa have succeeded for the first time to produce uniform antimony nanocrystals. Tested as components of laboratory batteries, these are able to store a large number of both lithium and sodium ions. These nanomaterials operate with high rate and may eventually be used as alternative anode materials in future high-energy-density batteries. The hunt is on

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The Energy Management Association (EMA) announced today that Siemens Industry has become the group’s first Founding Industry Partner. The relationship will be formalized during EMA’s organizational meeting at the Cx Energy 2014 Conference & Expo where Siemens will also be an exhibitor. EMA is a presenter of Cx Energy, an event that connects engineers, service providers and utility companies with

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The Wi-SUN® Alliance and the HomePlug® Alliance today announced a liaison agreement to facilitate collaboration toward the goal of enabling hybrid smart grid networks supporting both wireless (RF) and powerline-wired connectivity (PLC). This relationship will empower the many industry-leading member companies of both alliances to share requirements and specifications for Media Access Control (MAC) and transport layer profiles to facilitate

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Dynex Power Inc., a leading specialist high power semiconductor company, today announced that two new agreements have been signed with its majority shareholder, Zhuzhou CSR Times Electric Co., Ltd., to share the costs of carrying out R&D projects for high power semiconductor devices and to provide technical assistance to CSR Times Electric’s new IGBT fabrication facility in China. These new

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The Italian manufacturer Wi-Next S.r.L. announces the innovative low-power SmartNode for Industrial IoT (Internet of Things) applications. Low-power SmartNode is a unique appliance that is able to monitor in real-time the electrical consumption and the operation of industrial machines, using a Wi-Fi Sensor Mesh Network. The device allows remote definition and control of the maintenance plan of machinery, along with

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The missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 was carrying lithium-ion batteries which can be highly flammable. As reported by numerous sources, the confirmation by MAS chief executive officer Ahmad Jauhari Yahya during one of the daily briefings on the status of the search for the missing aircraft came four days after he denied the aircraft was carrying any hazardous goods. “We

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