ANYL 4

Lack of power quality on the grid costs the U.S. some $52 billion a year through momentary outages. But momentary outages are precisely where energy storage is most cost effective and other solutions such as distributed generation are least applicable. Multi MW installations, often involving lead/acid batteries can provide a solution on the customer side. On the grid, where imbalance of load and generation lead to voltage and frequency excursions, flywheels or supercapacitors may offer effective solutions. These applications require power and fast response rather than energy.

Large amounts of intermittent energy, as required by renewable mandates, can cause major instabilities on the grid and require costly backup in fossil fuel generation. Energy storage can provide an effective buffer that provides high power quality output, allows efficient ramping of wind or PV, and can make renewables dispatchable so that power is available during peak load periods as required. Storage also provides the necessary ramping for distributed generation such as fuel cells and micro turbines.

Energy management, involving longer time periods, real energy content as well as power are required. Energy storage can mitigate congestion on the grid during peak periods, reduce required peaking generation, and defer the upgrade of substations and transmission. Storage Flow batteries and advanced batteries such as sodium sulfur are most appropriate.