Wind Energy, Storage Combined In Coal Country (98 MW wind farm with 32 MW battery storage)

http://www.earthtechling.com/2011/11/wind-energy-storage-combined-in-coal-country/

West Virginia is Coal Country, but wind energy is making inroads there – with cutting-edge energy-storage capabilities, to boot. AES has announced the completion and full-scale commercial operation of its Laurel Mountain wind power plant. The 98-megawatt (MW) plant consists of 61 GE 1.6-MW wind turbine generators situated along a 13-mile stretch of Laurel Mountain near Elkins, W.Va. But what makes this project unique is its 32 MW of battery-based energy storage – the largest advanced energy storage project of its kind.

The battery bank will allow the wind farm to smooth fluctuations in power generation, and help maintain the reliability of the power grid. The plant will supply more than 260,000 megawatt-hours of renewable energy and operating reserve capacity each year to the PJM Interconnection, the largest power market in the world.

Arlington, Va.- based AES operates more than 1,900 MW of wind capacity in the United States, China and Europe. The company has 72 MW of grid-scale storage resources in operation and construction, and more than 500 MW of advanced energy storage projects in development. The Laurel Mountain storage facility is more than double the size of any of its previous projects, including an 8-MW battery system in the New York Independent System Operator market and a 12-MW frequency regulation and spinning reserve solution at AES Gener’s Los Andes substation in Chile.

<more>

Now we need to kill our military industry, and put the money into battery research.

Excluding storage for regulation (grid frequency stabilization) it is estimated that large scale grid storage will constitute only 4-5% of a renewable grid's capacity. Much of the need you see such large scale storage being an answer to is much more likely to be accomplished like this:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=115&topic_id=316113&mesg_id=316113

If you go to the website of Amory Lovins you'll find this coverage of a new book put out by Rocky Mountain Institute. This book, "Reinventing Fire" is a detailed look at what is in store for us with a renewable distributed grid. http://rmi.org/ReinventingFire

There is an "infographic" at the page linked below which summarizes the "key drivers to change". You'll note that storage isn't on that list. It's important that we are putting our resources where they count most. Battery storage is important to move us away from petroleum in the transportation sector, but there is no reason to think that we need wait on any sort of storage R&D in order to move forward.
http://rmi.org/ReinventingFireInfographic

It has been a long time since I've done a thermodynamic analysis. But going directly to heat leaves little in the way of options in how to utilize that stored energy. Batteries can be used for a multiplicity of things.

Am I missing some important part of that form of energy storage?

I also suspect you might not have a full appreciation of how truly vast and diverse the electric grid is. It becomes even more redundant than now as we move to a system built around distributed renewables.

http://rmi.org/rfexecutivesummary

I still want to know how going directly to heat is better than converting the energy to a form which can be utilized in a number of manners.

I honestly ask this as I have probably missed some glaringly obvious point. I really wish I had the same level of engineering I had 20 years ago. I do recall the Second law of thermo as being pretty important in situations like this.

about what amount of energy is consumed by end users for heating/cooling?

You asked what you are missing and I told you. There is storage in end-use thermal applications and you also clearly do not appreciate the scale of the grid or you would realize that the degree of intermittency in any one generating source is not as significant in the context of a network as your original remark implies; don't forget - there are a number of other renewable, dispatchable alterantives that storage is going to be competing with. As I said, all things considered (and excluding regulation power) we only need about 4-5% of a distributed renewable grid's capacity in the form of large-scale storage.

How many Kilowatts are used to heat up a residence versus how many are used for moving a car around.

I can see how shedding power to heat or cool works. But that makes the assumption that cooling or heating is needed. It doesn't take much to heat a residence. Not in comparison to something like the Chevy Volt. That's a 150 hp motor. Am I wrong that we use far greater energy powering cars around than we do heating homes? Now I don't know the facts. I could be wrong. And it could be different for various climates around the country.

For all practical purposes we're both talking about the same thing. Why not do it all? Charge batteries for tomorrow's commute to work, and store heat in a boiler for tonight's shower, and radiant heating system, etc?

I think the bottom line is, we're finally doing something about getting off of the fossil fuel habit.

I don't understand the point of "versus" with homes and autos. Overall end use for thermal represents about 30-35% of the electricity consumed. That amount represents storage opportunities that can help in load shifting from times of high renewable production to times of low production.

Here is a graph for commercial buildings, but homes have a similar profile.


Electric and series-hybrid electrics are a definite part of the mix, and vehicle-to-grid (V2G) is an important potential source of storage. In the early days (until the penetration of EVs is fairly high) it will serve mostly as a source of storage for regulation power.

My main point was that your original post seemed to rely on the assumption that we need some sort of super-battery to be deployed on a mass scale. It is a common mispercetion that I may have been reading into your words because we definitely agree on this: "Why not do it all? Charge batteries for tomorrow's commute to work, and store heat in a boiler for tonight's shower, and radiant heating system, etc? I think the bottom line is, we're finally doing something about getting off of the fossil fuel habit."

I see that the pie chart is for commercial. Residential water heating is no doubt far greater a percentage. My assumption (and it's problematic in some ways) is that each home would have battery packs that can charged while using the car, and then placed into the vehicle when returning back.

The grid is really complex. We aren't even talking about things like how certain types of energy use create problems, like the shifting of capacitance in the power.

The bottom line is probably that which we agree on. A variety of means of generation and storage.

I see what your point is. Inexpensive, lightweight batteries are a game changer - and you are absolutely correct. They are, or rather, they soon will be. They are progressing very rapidly on battery development. I'm personally looking forward to when they start rotating them out of EV's after they drop to only being able to store 80% of original capacity. Once you add that to the dropping prices that are going to result from the huge investments being made by all the automakers, I too believe that we will be entering a new phase of energy management.

I just hate for people to get the idea we need to wait for that evolution to occur before we can press ahead with all the other components of the system.

In the realm of "someday" I'm looking forward to seeing how cheap batteries affect the way our vehicles are configured. We all occasionally need cargo carrying capacity but it is a waste for most pickup drivers to tote around the bed all the time. I mean, sure, lots of people will need trucks full time, but I think more pickup owners only use the beds occasionally. I'm predicting that future pickups will be available with detachable beds that have dual use battery packs (home/jobsite and to add power for hauling cargo) that the cab of the truck can hook to and shed as needed.

On a recent trip out route 22 near Cresson, Altoona and Johnstown, I was amazed to see wind props spinning on the hillsides. Hubby and I were thrilled to see them. We make that trip a couple times a year and had never seen them before

37,000 megawatts. So if the wind-farm produces 98 megawatts with 61 windmills you will have to build another 23064 wind-mills just to supply the AEP customers.

A distributed renewable grid and a centralized thermal grid are different animals. You can't use that approach to determine the needs of a distributed grid - which will have more contributors than just wind.

ETA the word "can't"