Charge me up

What’s new?

Bloomberg Quint reported two weeks ago that six Tesla batteries are now providing backup power to meet peak demand for electricity in a project in southwest England.   

What does it mean?

“[D]esigned for utilities and large-scale commercial customers,” a Tesla Megapack battery is an integrated package of storage of up to 3 MWh of energy with all the controls, cooling system, and inverters needed to connect the storage to an electrical system. Their modular design means they can be connected to each other to create large storage capacity. “1 Gigawatt hour (GWh) project provides record energy capacity—enough to power every home in San Francisco for 6 hours.”

Electricity must be provided instantaneously as users turn devices on and off, requiring electricity generation that can ramp up and down quickly. Stand by power for meeting peak demand is often the most expensive part of an electrical system because it is used so rarely but has to be present to guarantee meeting demand during the peaks. Typically peaker plants burn natural gas to generate electricity.

The sun doesn’t always shine, the wind doesn’t always blow, and the water doesn’t always flow, so renewable energy sources are at a disadvantage compared to using fuels to generate power, but energy storage technologies (such as batteries, pumped water, stored heat, etc.) are increasingly enabling the world to move electricity generation toward 100% renewable while maintaining reliability. By replacing electricity generated by fuel with electricity generated by renewable energy in base power (the generating plants that run all the time) and by using electricity storage for to generate peak power, a system can take advantage of renewable energy when it is available and still make sure the lights come on when the light is turned on. Charge the battery when the sun shines, the wind blows, and the water flows, then discharge it as needed.

Other changes in technology can support a system designed for 100% renewable including demand side management (utility company strategies that reduce the peak demand of users), integration of electrical grids (strategies to ship power from places with more than is needed to places experiencing shortages), and energy efficiency (strategies to reduce base power demand because the cheapest energy is still the energy saved). Improvements in manufacturing have already contributed to the decline in the costs of solar panels and wind turbines, and such improvements will also contribute to a continued decline in the price of battery storage.

Many large and small changes are contributing to these developments. For example, people are looking at how the batteries in electric vehicles can be used as storage devices not just to power transportation but also to feed back into the system at times of peak demand.

It’s all about the probabilities. Electric utilities measure reliability by SAIDI (system average interruption duration index), the total duration of interruptions as experienced by the average customer. The ideal is zero, of course, but some interruptions are inevitable during events such as hurricanes or earthquakes. Schools that have moved on line have speculated that snow days are in the past, but in my part of rural Colorado, the teacher and students may no longer need to get to the school in the snow, but they still need the electricity to be on so they can be online.

It’s not just the power, however, it’s also the frequency and voltage. I have oversimplified a bit by focusing on the provision just of the peak and base power; the electricity system must generate power  with stability in the parameters that matter in the use of the electricity.

What does it mean for you?

When you flip the switch on a light in your home or turn on a computer or a machine in your manufacturing facility, you want the device to come on and stay on. Because of developments like the Tesla battery, the future is bright – and reliable.

You and I can help move toward that future. Next week I am having my shingle roof replaced with a metal roof.  Then I will look at replacing the propane fueled heat in my house with an electric heat pump. Solutions that may have made sense 20 years ago when I had the house built need reexamination now. And I expect our upcoming purchase of a new refrigerator to reduce our energy consumption since consumer appliances continue to improve on this measure.

Where can you learn more?

Consultants abound to help you reduce your energy use in your business, but the place to start may be your electricity provider. They often have programs and incentives. Your next stop should be your state and local governments which may have substantial programs to reduce energy use.  Also, see this directory. Homeowners may be aware of the Energy Star ratings for home appliances; the program is also supports reduction of energy use in industrial companies.

Learning the language of energy consultants can help you find the right partner.  NIST (the US National Institute of Standards and Technology) has 51 Manufacturing Extension Partnerships (one in every state and Puerto Rico) which can help you find an energy consultant, as well help small and medium sized manufacturers with many other issues.

Energy service companies can design a performance contract to pay for changes through projected energy cost savings. The National Association of Energy Service Companies has a list of companies who have been accredited by this association. Thomas Net lists 855 suppliers of energy consulting services.

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