Five win grants to power clean energy drive

Grace Chua Straits Times 26 Jun 10;

SOMEWHERE on the grounds of the University of New South Wales in Australia, there is a golf cart chugging along on vanadium redox batteries.

Now, Ngee Ann Polytechnic senior lecturer Tuti Mariana Lim, 42, who did her undergraduate and doctoral work at

UNSW, is trying to take these batteries further.

The chemical engineer's team is attempting to shrink these batteries while allowing them to store the same amount of energy, so they can be used in vehicles like electric cars.

Vanadium redox batteries can store renewable energy, such as solar and wind power, in the form of chemical energy.

And while other rechargeable batteries must be powered up by plugging them in for hours, vanadium batteries can be recharged simply by changing the electrolyte solution, much like filling a petrol tank.

For her work, Dr Lim, who is also an adjunct assistant professor at Nanyang Technological University's civil and environmental engineering school, received one of five grants from the Clean Energy Research Programme, a $50 million kitty set up by the Government in 2007.

Selected from 48 proposals this year, the five make up the third grant call from the fund, and will be given a total of $13 million over the next three years.

Public agencies and institutions qualify for full grants for direct costs, while private-sector proposals can receive up to 70 per cent of a project's costs.

Previous grant calls focused on research into solar energy.

This current round focuses on making solar energy more cost-effective, and on improving ways to store renewable energy forms, such as the wind, which are at the whim of weather conditions.

To date, about half of the $50 million fund has been disbursed to some 20 projects.

Economic Development Board managing director and Clean Energy Programme Office executive director Beh Swan Gin said: 'These research topics address the issues of cost-effective solar cells and renewable energy storage, both of which are critical to the development of clean energy markets globally.'

He added: 'We believe that the five successful projects... could lead to commercially viable technologies that will enjoy mass adoption.'

Under the Government's clean energy initiative, the industry is targeted to contribute $1.7 billion to gross domestic product and create 7,000 jobs here by 2015.

Other proposals which received funding in this latest round include projects to texture the glass used in solar panels so the cells inside capture more light, and to improve lithium-ion batteries so they can be used to store renewable energy.