Posted on 01/09/2012 11:30:36 AM PST by bananaman22
2011 saw huge advances in solar, wind and other renewable energy sources, and these advancements will continue into 2012. In fact 2012 could be the year that renewable energy sources start to seriously compete with traditional fossil fuels, at least that is the hope in the battle to reduce carbon emissions and our dependence on dwindling oil stocks. However a major problem with renewable energy sources is that they can rarely provide consistent power levels, due to a myriad of factors outside of human control.
Eric Wesoff, an industry analyst with Greentech Media, explains that, A wind farm only works when the blades are spinning. It might have a nameplate capacity of 100 megawatts, but it never puts out that much. Sometimes its 70; sometimes its nothing. To a grid operator, that kind of resource is a headache rather than an aspirin. To overcome these fluctuations energy storage systems can be used to store excess power at peak generating times and release it when needed to provide a more constant level. So now that 100-MW wind farm can say, Were a 40-MW, steady-state, 24/7 energy sourcemore like a coal plant. Thats more valuable to society.
The most abundant energy storage system in use around the world is the battery, but producing giant batteries for the electrical grid has always been very expensive. Lots of research has been done into small batteries for mobile phones and MP3 players, etc. and now, according to Haresh Kamath, program manager for energy-storage research at the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI). The research applied to those industries is now being applied to batteries for the grid. In fact the worlds largest battery array, a $500 million system capable of storing 36 megawatt-hours of electricity, has recently been completed in China by the State Grid Corporation of China (SGCC) and the electric car maker BYD. As part of Chinas push toward a smart grid system for renewable energy, the battery has been hooked up to 140 megawatts of solar and wind power generation as well as a smart grid transmission system. And we can expect more of these battery facilities after the Deputy Director of Chinas National Energy Administration called it the model for the future of Chinese renewable energy development. Full article at: Football Pitch-Sized Batteries Could Change the World of Renewable Energy
Wind to Electricity... efficiency
is naturally quite low and not important. We really don't want to take 100% of the wind energy and stop all wind. We actually do not want to have a measurable impact.
What would be a meaningful comparison to pumped storage, which is electricity in; stored over time; electricity out to the same input output with a battery in the middle.
If that is what you want, I can search it out, but it it will not be close to pumped storage for efficiency.
10 to 1 that the "huge advances" that to which the author refers are in the form of govenment subsidies to constuct these boondogles. That would not be a "technical breakthrough."
Don’t stick your tongue across the terminals to test it.
What dwindling supply of fossil fuels? We have more known reserves today than we did 40 years ago. We have barely explored the ocean floor for coal and natural gas. We have just recently discovered oil at 7,000 feet below the deep ocean floor. Good G—! We keep hyping this ‘running out of oil so we have to completely retool and blah blah blah’.
Gee, I’m W-A-A-A-A-Y behind the times:
I had NO IDEA that A/C batteries had been invented, let alone G-I-A-N-T ones built! /S
Power companies have been doing hydro pumped storage for at least a few decades now. Georgia Power does it in Middle Georgia. The technology is well known, and I know they know the losses. I want to say the overall efficiency is in the 65% range.
They use it to run base-load nuclear and coal plants all night at higher load factors pumping water, then do peaking power with the hydro during the day.
And Wiki says 70% to 85%, so I was off a little.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumped-storage_hydroelectricity
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