ABB and Alstom Grid hybrid HVDC circuit breakers

I have written before about ABB's HVDC hybrid breaker and its meaning, and about the reasons that breakers that are more economical than their breaker (or Alstom Grid's competitive design) are needed to enable a cost effective supergrid. This post focuses more on the steps needed to enable the eventual supergrid; by that, I refer to the "mesogrid" voltage levels in a future DC grid.

First Ballistic Breaker Patent has Issued

The first national phase patent has issued on the Ballistic Breaker, US patent 8,890,019. There are many more national phase patents coming from the original PCT, plus a CIP application in the US and a whole second stream of patents from a second PCT.

Alevo now controls the Ballistic Breaker

Alevo has made a deal with me to acquire both of my corporations (Ballistic Breaker and Electric Pipeline) in a merger/acquisition, and has hired me to pursue elpipes (www.elpipe.com) and Ballistic Breakers (www.ballisticbreaker.com). Elpipes are one key part of what is needed to create a supergrid, and a supergrid big enough to span several weather systems is needed to make non-dispatchable generators (wind & solar, mainly) sufficiently reliable in aggregation to greatly lower the amount of storage or fast dispatchable generation needed to balance load on the grid.

All of Alevo's innovative products aim at enabling a de-carbonization of our energy technology. My particular piece is focused on DC power, which is critical for a robust, multi-generation supergrid. Their launch technology is a very robust & efficient Li-ion battery that is especially well suited to application in the grid. Next products include my inventions, a lower cost DC Breaker and a high capacity electricity pipeline, the elpipe. The elpipe supports the next phase of evolution of the grid by enabling transfers ~30GW through one passively cooled line. No magic involved; elpipes use a LOT more metal per amp-m than conventional lines. Elpipes will achieve reliability in spite of having 50X more electrical junctions by inventive snap-fit methods combined with appropriate assembly protocol and real time monitoring of performance. The elpipe is a mashup of a powerline, a pipeline, and a train. The elpipe “train” could consist of 200 km of linked cars, all with synchronized controllers running, feeding back information to the global controller through multiple channels for redundancy.

My Ballistic Breaker is enabling for DC networks at many power levels, and development of the 1-10 MW scale DC breaker is high priority right now.

USPTO office action on Ballistic Breakers

My continuation in part patent application on Ballistic Breakers will be allowed. Claims 1-19 are allowed as submitted; there is a  technical issue with claim 20 that can easily be overcome. This is the second time in a month that I have had very good news on the patent front. My US patent application on elpipes will also be granted soon, based on USPTO actions.

This is extremely good news, and shows my strategy to have been reasonable. If I had a lot of money, I would have been much more in stealth mode. I did it this way because I had to talk about my ideas in order to find investors, and that meant filing patent applications so I could speak about my inventions. I have now found an investor who is interested in backing both Electric Pipeline Corporation and Ballistic Breaker Corporation, and he never would have found me if not for my strategy.

PCT Patent application link & status report on Ballistic Breaker™

The Ballistic Breaker is called a "commutating circuit breaker" in both my US and PCT (Patent Cooperation Treaty) patent applications. I decided to post my (now published) PCT patent application here to make it easy to access. The PCT patent application also adds a little bit more subject matter and a few more claims over my earlier US patent application.

The patent application applies to numerous implementations of the basic concept: 

• linear motion actuation or rotary actuation; 
• multiple stages can be used to divide the voltage so as to allow high voltage ballistic breakers with many stages;
• gradation of the resistivity of trailing edges of the electrodes to further inhibit arcing upon electrode separation;
• motion can be actuated by springs, gas pressure, stepper motors, or stretched wire or fibers (for example);
• Use of correlated magnetic domains to accurately define the on state of the circuit breaker (subsidiary to US patent 8,098,122 to Correlated Magnetics);
• Use of piezoelectric actuators as super-fast releases.

For a quick introduction to Ballistic Breakers, check these links: 

• a 3 minute recorded presentation
• an investor pitch 

I recently filed a continuation-in-part US utility patent application that is based on both my February 6, 2012 US patent application and my PCT patent application, but adding in a bit more IP and two more claims.

Short presentation on Ballistic Breakers

I prepared this 3 minute presentation for a business plan competition.

My comment on the Energy Innovation by Statoil blogsite today

Ian said:

New Scientist and Statoil asked specifically what will have the largest near future impact, not what could. Not sure the winner and runner-ups reflect this important distinction

I commented:

On the positive side of this, I hope that 50 years from now we can look back and realize just what saved us. My leading candidates:

1) LENR (by that I specifically mean the nuclear fusion reactions of nickel with light (normal) hydrogen; if that works out it will surely be the most important thing.

2) If not that, then I'm betting on a supergrid to save us.

When the shit hits the fan, there will be a panicky rush for solutions. Unfortunately only proven technologies will qualify for panic funding. My goal is to have my invention elpipes ready when that moment arrives; see www.elpipe.com