Smart Grids and Power Electronics Consortium Singapore

Our technology features a three state optical modulation between transparent, color and mirror appearance of a given surface, primarily on glass substrates. The switching between the three states can be triggered by a small voltage application. The versatile electrochromic device allows user to enjoy outdoor view in transparent state, blocking of sunlight in colored state and reflective finish in mirror state. It can offer additional light management capability compared to the solid state electrochromics. This technology is promising for the optical modulation of building façade and fenestration, in reducing energy consumption for in-door air conditioning, creating interactive visual displays on glass or façade decoration for interior designers to create space and light interaction.

With the wide deployment of renewable energy harvesting devices, such as solar cells and wind turbines, there is an urgency to develop high efficiency and economical energy storage systems to stabilize the intermittent and often unpredictable primary power sources before the power can be channelled to the grid safely or utilized for on-site loads. Redox flow batteries (RFBs) are regarded as promising electrochemical energy storage devices due to their special features of separable energy and power capacity. However, redox flow batteries tend to have lower energy densities than integrated cell architectures. Many approaches have been studied to improve the energy efficiency of RFBs. Among them, reducing shunt current loss and other parasitic loss is of great importance. This invention is capable of minimizing the shunt current in a redox flow battery through increasing the conductive path that exists between adjacent cells, without increasing maintenance cost or assembly complexity.