German language video
Austrian Grocer MPREIS is decarbonizing its business and switching towards hydrogen, mainly for its truck fleet and bakery. Production capacity 1300 kg hydrogen per day.
If companies in an energy-starved Europe want to survive, this is the way to do it: take responsibility for your own energy supply. Useless EU US-vassal politicians will only ruin the public energy supply.
[mpreis.at] – MPREIS Wasserstoff
[de.wikipedia.org] – MPREIS
DAF CF Electric drives from Salzburg to Kärnten, via the Großglockner-Hochalpenstraß detour. Max. 12% slope, 3550 m altitude, 326 HP, energy consumption increases from 1.77 kWh/km to 2.7 kWh/km high in the mountains, but on the way down, a lot of electricity is recuperated. Conclusion of the trip: no problems driving a heavy e-truck through the mountains.
[spiegel.de] – Elektrischer 26-Tonnen-Lkw überwindet Hochalpenstraße
The entire Alpine mountain pass in Austria.
Austria is a country known for high mountains, not deep waters, yet they harbor a club that explores the idea of storing energy by pushing objects underwater.
The world is undergoing a substantial energy transition with an increasing share of intermittent sources of energy on the grid such as wind and solar. These variable renewable energy sources require an energy storage solution to allow a smooth integration of these sources. Batteries can provide short-term storage solutions. However, there is still a need for technologies that can provide weekly energy storage at locations without potential for pumped hydro storage. This paper presents innovative solutions for energy storage based on “buoyancy energy storage” in the deep ocean. The ocean has large depths where potential energy can be stored in gravitational based energy storage systems. The deeper the system, the greater the amount of stored energy. The cost of Buoyancy Energy Storage Technology (BEST) is estimated to vary from 50 to 100 USD/kWh of stored electric energy and 4,000 to 8,000 USD/kW of installed capacity. BES could be a feasible option to complement batteries, providing weekly storage cycles. As well as from storing energy, the system can also be used to compress hydrogen efficiently.
[iiasa.ac.at] – Buoyancy Energy Storage Technology: An energy storage solution for islands, coastal regions, offshore wind power and hydrogen compression
[newatlas.com] – New undersea energy storage system harnesses the power of buoyancy
[azocleantech.com] – New Technology can Provide a More Sustainable Energy Storage Solution
[iiasa.ac.at] – Julian Hunt
[wikipedia.org] – Buoyancy
It’s wonderful, all these new developments with photo-voltaic solar panels, wind turbines and hydrogen storage, but space heating is still the largest chunk of a national energy budget, at least in Europe. The biggest decarbonization gains can be, and will have to be made, here.
Hence, it is to be greeted that an Austrian periodical pays attention to a promising Dutch startup Ecovat, that offers a solution for seasonal storage of heat in the soil.
[aee-intec.at] – Attention for Ecovat in Austrian magazine
[aee-intec.at] – AEE – Institut für Nachhaltige Technologien (1988)
[deepresource] – District Heating with Seasonal Storage in Vojens Denmark
[deepresource] – Our Ecovat posts
German language video, Lustenau, Austria.
Passive heating in Austria. Temperature all-year around guaranteed to be between 22-26 C, hence the qualifier “2226”. Office building with 100 work places. Humans themselves are “hot” and serve as heat sources of 80 Watt. And so are devices like computers, lights, coffee machines, printers, etc. The trick is to keep this modest amount of generated heat inside the walls, that are no less than 76 cm thick.
The windows are deep inside, to prevent that too much solar heat will penetrate into the building in the summer, eliminating the need for cooling with energy devouring air conditioners. If inside, the temperature gets too hot or the air too stuffy, valves in the outer walls are simply opened. No complicated network of pipes and pumps is installed. The resulting building is cheap and simple and hence low-maintenance.
[source]
So where’s the catch? An important point is to let go of the superfluous wish to completely control the temperature at say 22 C. By tolerating the temperature to vary between 22 and 26 C, you gain a lot of freedom to eliminate both heating and cooling and leave it to inhabitants to decide to work in a t-shirt or pullover. Another important point is the relatively large thermal mass inside the building, that acts as a buffer and temperature stabilizer.
German language video with English subs. Example Luzerne, Switzerland.
[welt.de] – Keine Heizung, trotzdem 26 Grad – das System „2226“ macht Bauen einfacher
[de.wikipedia.org] – Lochziegel
German language video, Burgenland, Austria. If works for detached homes too.
[source] Building elements for a 2226 building
Volatility of renewable energy generation asks for efficient thermal energy storage systems (TES). The novel TES of Vienna University of Technology (VUT) is based on sand and uses the fluidization principle, thus creating a highly efficient heat exchanger and storing heat at high temperature and large quantity in a cheap and uncritical storage medium.
Benefits:
very low costs of the storage medium sand
widely available natural material without hazard issues
high specific heat capacity and density
non-corrosive and stable over a very wide temperature range (100-800°C)
Potential Applications:
Concentrating Solar Power
Adiabatic Compressed air storage (CAS)
Industrial Heat recovery (“Ash Cooler” after a fluidized bed combustion chamber)
Development Status:
A cold acrylic glass model allows for experimental testing, a 200kW prototype is under construction
[tuwien.at] – sandTES (link to pdf)
[researchgate.net] – SandTES – Storage System based on Powder Fluidization
[wseas.org] – SandTES – A Novel Thermal Energy Storage Technology
[core.ac.uk] – sandTES (2014)
[voestalpine.com] – World’s largest “green” hydrogen pilot facility successfully commences operation
[cleantechnica.com] – Hydrogen In, Fossil Fuel Out For Leading Steelmaker, Eventually
[h2future-project.eu] – The project is carried out within an EU-framework
[thyssenkrupp-steel.com] – Targeting a future without CO2
Total collector size: 348 m2, used to dry 4,000 m3 wood chips per year.
Note how thin the collector really is
[cona.at] – Hackschnitzeltrocknung
Technology has matured enough to produce effective wind turbines. The next technological challenge is how to store intermittent electricity generated by these wind turbines. The most promising technology is power-to-gas: use electricity from wind to split water in H2 and O2 molecules and burn (reunited) them at a later point in time.
This project produces 163 bar hydrogen, without the need of an external compressor. The resulting hydrogen can be directly fed into the existing natural gas network.
[omv.com] – Hydrogen technology
[omv.com] – Renewable energy? Let’s store it!
The Austrian oil company OMW has signed a memorandum of understanding that it wants to participate in the construction of two further legs of the existing Nord Stream pipeline Viborg-Greifswald. Additional partners: Royal-Dutch Shell, E-ON and Gazprom (51%).
Extra capacity: 55 billion m3/year.
[org.at] – OMV will bei Gasprom-Pipeline „Nord Stream“ einsteigen
[zeit.de] – Gazprom baut zwei neue Leitungen für Ostseepipeline
[reuters.com] – Russia’s Gazprom to expand Nord Stream gas pipeline with E.ON, Shell, OMV
There is still a little problem though:
[source] Needs permission from the Americans
Time to go, Angie. This job is not for you. Hand over to Steinmeier or Gabriel, no elections needed.
DeepResource 
