Hybrid battery plan

Age
Tuesday 27/11/2007 Page: 6

THE CSIRO will help develop a hybrid battery able to store electricity from renewable sources. With a venture capital company, Cleantech Ventures, the CSIRO will join a new outfit, Smart Storage, to work on a low-cost battery capable of high-performance stationary energy sto rage. The CSIRO says current batteries capable of storing energy from solar and wind energy are expensive and unable to meet high power demands. "The Smart Storage technology is based on CSIRO's Ultrabattery, which has been successfully trialled in hybrid vehicles," a CSIRO director, John Wright, said. The battery will be 50% more powerful and last three times longer than the conventional ones.