Let’s start a thread for the Swedish company called Azelio. There has already been discussion about the company on the forum several times, and there are owners based on the buy and sell thread. The company is followed by the Swedish analysis firm RedEye.
This company manufactures equipment for energy storage. When using wind, solar, and other environmentally friendly energy sources, emissions are very low or non-existent – depending on the energy source used. The solution is based on energy produced by a Stirling engine (Stirlingmoottori) powered by thermal energy (gas), which a generator converts into electricity. The operation of the Stirling engine is based on pressure differences caused by temperature fluctuations in gases, which generate energy for the generator that converts energy into electricity. The operation is illustrated by the following videos, first the entire solution and then the operating principle of the Stirling engine (the videos have English subtitles available):
RedEye is indeed following the company, and they estimate that the business will take gigantic leaps in the coming years. Azelio is moving into the commercialization phase, as product tests have been/hopefully will be successfully completed. Here are the forecasts from the August report, which is open to everyone:
RedEye in July:
“Currently two verification projects installed, one in Morocco and one in Sweden, consisting of two storage + Stirling units each. A third project is being installed in Abu Dhabi during Q3 2020, consisting of four storage units with Stirlings.” p.11
“In Q4 2019, Azelio successfully installed its first two projects in Åmål and Ouarzazate. We would further like to highlight that data from the different projects most likely will be released as they go, even if we believe that 12 months of running data is a critical dataset probably wanted by customers” p.9
Based on the press release, this third project was still being assembled last week, but are investors expecting any information from the first two projects before the end of the year? The Moroccan project has also apparently experienced considerable problems due to travel restrictions.
Patents granted are always a good sign. It also seems to have a good foothold abroad, which is also a positive thing. There are already high expectations for next year, so we’ll see
I’ll start with a small monitoring position and add more if things develop
One thing that makes me wonder about this is the efficiency. Is that 90% efficiency achieved when both electricity and heat are produced? Is there a need for this extra heat in California and North Africa?
I deleted my own message because it clearly contained incorrect information. So, heat is well-preserved and heat storage is pretty much maintenance-free, a Stirling engine has a maintenance interval of 6000 hours, and the heat-to-electricity conversion efficiency is around 30%?
The main advantage is likely that it’s relatively maintenance-free and doesn’t require adding or changing anything in the “battery,” i.e., in the aluminum part.
Compared to batteries.
Here, one should certainly also compare the conversion of energy into hydrogen via electrolysis?
An interesting pick. It’s nice to read about these, even though it’s hard to say yet how useful this invention is. It would surely be a great invention if it solved the eternal problem of how to store solar panel electricity.
Many questions still arise from this, though. Is the main market and idea to place these next to solar panel farms and then feed energy into the grid or for factory use? Is this invention suitable everywhere?
It would sound good if 90% of solar energy could be stored. A 30% efficiency doesn’t sound particularly great, though. And that basic 13kW output would be enough to power, say, a few medium-sized apartment buildings, depending on the property, of course.
I’ll have to look at the pages more closely; there might be answers there.
I dug a little deeper into the Redeye report, and it mentioned this:
“When comparing energy storage, solutions specific efficiency in terms of energy losses will be measured. In Azelio’s case, they have an efficiency of 29% from stored thermal energy to electricity, but can reach up to 90% efficiency from electricity to electricity and heat at 55-65 degrees C. The residual heat comes out at 55-65C from the process and can be used as low-temperature district heating, for desalination of thermal water, for industrial process heat and cooling through absorption cooling processes. To verify the solutions total cost efficiency and make the solution bankable, the company is currently running verification projects which we will address in the next chapter.”
The report also mentions that there is a huge amount of interest and quite viable projects are on the way. However, a lot seems to depend on the results of these pilot projects.
The video in that link shows a system where sunlight is reflected by mirrors to heat Azelio’s Stirling engine’s aluminum tank, and that system’s efficiency would be 30%. Normal solar panels have lower efficiency.
However, somewhere it was mentioned that the efficiency of electricity-to-electricity storage would be 90%. Is that reliable information? How would that even work? This would be a much better efficiency for electricity storage than with hydrogen.
Another company in Sweden also makes these Stirling engines: Swedish Stirling. However, they don’t seem to be direct competitors to Azelio. They have focused on generating electricity from hot industrial exhaust gases. Their efficiency is also around 30% in converting thermal energy into electricity.
“In Azelio’s case, they have an efficiency of 29% from stored thermal energy to
electricity, but can reach up to 90% efficiency from electricity to electricity and heat at 55-65
degrees C”
In my opinion, this refers to CHP (combined heat and power) efficiency, meaning that heat is included.
How much electricity does one aluminum cylinder and Stirling generator combination produce? I only found 13h of operation time on Azelio’s website, but how much power?
Azelio has created a complete energy-producing system for installations between 0.1MW-100MW with a storage capacity of 13 hours of electricity generation at nominal output. This means that the solution can be adjusted to the demand with an output of for example 26% if run on 50% output
I don’t know what kind of arsenal of engines and storage units would be needed, but the entire investment case is based on cost-effectiveness in certain conditions, at least that’s the impression I got from Red Eye’s report.
In Azelio’s case, the focus will initially be towards projects up to 20MW, while in a second phase up two 100MW at mini or -off-gridswhere the storage capacity need is in the range of 4-13hrs.
If the goal is to set up a 100MW power plant in the coming years, it’s hard to imagine a thousand Stirling engines and “aromipesä” (storage units) pumping in parallel. However, these don’t use any rare metals, so in that sense, it might be cost-effective to expand power capacity. I don’t know how that would happen in practice.
So there was a separate thread for this. As I understand it, there are quite a few of those MoU (Memorandum of Understanding) agreements now. Now it’s just about scaling up production to start delivering, and if things go well, I’d imagine follow-up orders will come? I bought another batch, number 5. Nothing huge, but altogether it’s actually quite a large position compared to other renewables, which are very diversified!
