Energy storage coming to a power grid near you

[kristopher]

Energy storage coming to a power grid near you
Posted by Martin LaMonica

Someday, the electricity grid will operate with the equivalent of a giant hard drive. But in the short term, grid storage will look more like a PC's cache or RAM, able to serve up small bursts of power to keep things from crashing.

A panel of experts, organized by the New England Clean Energy Council, earlier this week said that the utility storage field has enormous potential. But rapid deployment of storage devices is held back by concerns over technology risk and financial complexity.

Technology optimists say that wide-scale energy storage will change the face of the transmission grid and make wind and solar power more compelling economically.

In this scenario, utilities store electricity made from renewable sources or produced during off-peak times. Then, when demand for electricity peaks in the middle of the day, they could draw from the stored-up charge.

This "peak shaving" practice avoids the need to build new power plants to meet growing demand. Utilities could also idle dirty and expensive "peaking plants," which are only turned on during times of high demand, such as very hot summer days when air conditioners max out the load.

But moving megawatts' worth of electricity around the grid like files on a computer is ...


Continued at http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-9977209-54.html

[Fredda Weinberg]

1. I found out just today how many new IT jobs this is generating.

It takes smarts to be more efficient and it won't be humans.

[kristopher]

2. ? ? ? I don't understand... nt

[Fredda Weinberg]

3. We've invested little in the grid. It hasn't changed much since the

power companies started. But these new systems need to be developed and maintained ... jobs that didn't exist even a few years ago.

[kristopher]

6. Right! I understand and you are spotting an area I think is often overlooked.

I encourage any young person looking for a stable future to become an electrician. We are going to have to augment the wiring in nearly every place a car is parked; home, office, mall etc.

[NNadir]

10. Well, it is true that more energy is consumed saying energy storage is around the corner than is

actually stored.

The external and internal cost of energy storage is huge but among the dangerous fossil fuel apologists who bill themselves as the "solar will save us" knowledge of the second law of thermodynamics is nonexistent.

The world's largest energy storage devices are dams, and they have proved deadly on a vast, almost incomprehensible scale.

The number of people killed in energy storage accidents in the 1970's alone exceeded all American deaths in Vietnam.

In fact, the number of deaths from energy storage of renewable energy exceeded ten years of deaths from dangerous fossil fuel self propelled devices, so called "personal transport," devices, the devices for which the "solar will save us" crowd is engaged in so much greenwashing.

[Speck Tater]

4. This is still pie in the sky, and AT LEAST 40 years away.

What they are saying is, "Oh, this is going to be a revolutionary change, IF someday, somebody figures out how to actually do it."

We could say exactly the same thing about teleportation replacing public transportation, and Star Trek food replicators replacing all the world's agribusiness. Yes, both of those would be revolutionary. IF someday, somebody figures out how to actually do it.

But until somebody makes it real, it's just science fiction in disguise.

[kristopher]

5. You couldn't be more wrong.

The technology is here and now, and it is being deployed as we speak. Lithium batteries are a 30 year old, mature technology that can cost effectively do the job. The vehicle to grid (V2G) concept and related research show that the means and manner of implementation is here, now. The use of large scale Compressed Air Energy Storage is a proven 30 year old technology.

High fossil fuel prices (both in transport and power generation) and the problem of climate change are both addressed through the deployment of these existing technologies. There is only one set of losers - those who own and operate the present fossil fuel resources ans related infrastructure. Demand has driven prices to where they are no longer able to use their economic clout to suppress the adoption of alternative systems of grid management and powering.

[Fredda Weinberg]

7. Exactly. There's more to be gained in efficiency than almost anything else

we can do in the next decade. The rest of the world can't afford to waste as much as we have, so these systems will be deployed globally even before they become universal here.

[Speck Tater]

8. To quote from the article you linked...

But moving megawatts' worth of electricity around the grid like files on a computer is more theory than practice these days.

"Buying power at night and then selling it during the day--something like that will happen maybe in 30 or 40 years when storage technologies are one-tenth the costs they are today," said Ric Fulop, co-founder and vice president of business development at lithium-ion battery company A123 Systems.

---

Sure, the technology exists, but not at the enormous practical scale necessary to make any difference as yet. Yes, we can store energy in a battery, as we do with a laptop or cell phone. Yes, we can store energy in a flywheel, and some little toy wind-up cars demonstrate that it is possible, just as model airplanes have been run on compressed air. But a flywheel or compressed air system of the magnitude necessary for grid storage in a major metropolitan area is, while theoretically possible, not economically feasible.

As the energy crisis deepens I keep looking for more and more "good news, the solution is at hand" type of feel-good articles talking about what might be possible some day.

But as the energy crisis deepens, the percent of available energy necessary for mere survival goes higher and higher, and the "extra" left over energy that can be applied to the manufacture of mega-storage systems on a scale never before seen, gets smaller and smaller. By the time we really NEED mega-storage systems there won't be enough diesel fuel or spare energy left on the grid to build them. Nor will there be enough investment capital in the ruins of our crashed economy to finance their construction.

[kristopher]

9. Valid point, but I believe it is based on a business as usual view of the market

Read his remarks carefully and I think it is clear that the prediction is based on extrapolating from the current perspective on the economics of energy policy. Those presume a continued emphasis on a cap & trade market driven gradual transition to renewables.

There is another model that is gaining currency as another point is the article is better understood. That is that there is so much great stuff (ie 10X lithiums or the EESTOR) in the pipeline that attracting investment wanting to manufacture soon-to-be-obsolete lithium batteries is difficult. The wise financial decision under cap and trade is to let it ride and wait. However climate change isn't waiting and provides a definitive reason to take the more direct, interventionist approach and guarantee the investments needed to make large infrastructure inroads with current gen battteries. They have the capability; it is just that ten years from now we are very confident that there will be dramatic improvements. Penalized by success, you might say.

I think what is important to remember is that there are two categories of objections - technological and political/economic/cultural. At this point all the problems fall into the latter category; which means we need to be constantly examining objections for their continued validity in rapidly changing circumstances.

[skids]

11. Ric needs to take a ride up route 495...

...from the A123 offices and visit Beacon Power. They're still shooting to have their first plant open this year.