clean electricity grid technologies

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ENERGY INNOVATION

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SOURCE: Think Progress

ByStephen Lacey| Wednesday, June 15th, 2011

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Climate Progress repor ter Stephen Lacey br ings us an innovation update about some cutting-edge

energy technologiesthat are solving major r oadblocks to renewable energy deployment. For a

long time an oft-repeated mantra of renewable energy naysayers says that because the wind

doesnt always blow or the sun doesnt always shine, clean energy can never be scaled. Well ,

here are the top five technologies youve never heard of that are proving them wrong.

The top five ways companies are integrating renewables into the grid are:

1. I ntelligent Demand Response

2. M icroinverters and Maximum Power Point Trackers

3. W ind Energy M anagement Tools

4. The Vir tual Power Plant

5. The Hybrid Solar -Gas Power Plant

Explanations of each of these with videos are below.

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Intermittent renewables at high penetrati ons wil l bri ng new challenges for the grid. But how big will

they be? And is it t rue that wind and solar wil l necessarily need storage or natural gas back-up at

high levels?

The International Energy Agency wanted to know, so it modeled a vari ety of high-penetrati on

scenarios in eight geographic regions around the world. Hugo Chandler, a senior policy analyst with

the IEA explains the organizati ons findings to Climate Progress:

Vari abil it y is not just some new phenomenon in grid management. What we found

is that renewable energy is not fundamentally different. The criticisms of

renewables often neglect the complementariti es between di fferent technologies and

the way they can balanceeach other out i f spread over certain regions and energy

types.

Grid operators are constantl y working to balance available supply with demand

its what they do. There are always natural variations that cause spikes in demand,

reductions in supply or create disturbances in frequency and voltage. Once you see

there are a variety of ways to properly manage that var iabili ty, you star t

whittling away at the argument that you always need storage or a

megawatt of natur al gas backup for every megawatt of r enewable

energy.

Theoreti cal modeling is important. But what companies are doing in reali ty?

Heres five of the top methods for integrating renewable energy into the grid proving that

intermit tency isnt the show-stopper that cri ti cs make it out to be.

L5 wIntell igent demand response is often called the kil ler app of the smart grid. Demand response is

not a new concept but the intelligent part is sti ll somewhat new.




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The demand-response leader, EnerNOC, is now applying this concept to renewable energy. The

company announced earl ier this year that i t would work wi th a Northwestern t ransmission operator

to help manage demand to meet the fluctuating output of wind electr icity in the system. EnerNOC

president David Brewster calls it the perfect dancing partner for wind. By ramping up demand at

facil it ies during time of peak supply and lowering demand when supply drops off, the grid can

respond to changing condit ions in real time without the need for storage.

a a t t Inverters are the gateway to the grid turning Direct Current electr icity from solar PV systems to

grid-friendly Alternating Current. Over the past several years, theres been a revolution in inverter

technologies that allow project owners to more effectively regulate system performance. One

technology, the microinverter, is installed on the back of individual panels, turning each module

into its own unit and providing real-time data on how each is operating. Therefore, if clouds roll

over a PV system, the Chri stmas tree light effect is avoided, and each panel sti ll functions

normally, maximizing the output of a system sometimes by 20% or more.

Speaking of maximizing output, thats where Maximum Power Point Trackers (MPPT) come in.These pieces of power electronics are also installed on the back of individual panels. But theyre not

microinverters; i nstead, they boost voltage to an optimal range for a central inverter, thus allowing

the device to run more efficiently. By allowing a system owner to control a PV plant at the module

level, you can boost performance on the module level and regulate voltage even as weather patterns

change.




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9 a SCADA systems that remotely monitor wind farm performance have been around for years but

there are a host of new applications being developed that allow grid operators and ut il it ies monitor

system-wide performance in an easier, more compelli ng way.

The Wind Energy Management System from the Portuguese company Logica is a great example.The company manages over 3 gigawatts of wind farms in the U.S. and Europe using its WEMS,

which allows for real-t ime monitoring of a set of geographically dispersed wind plants providing

the tools to balance voltage, ramp wind farms up and down quickly, and plan for maintenance.




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A company like EnerNOC provides the tools for better management on the demand side; a company

like Logica provides the tools for better integration on the supply side.

t t Virtual power plants combine intell igent demand response with supply-side management software,

bringing distr ibuted renewable energy plants together to form a vir tual centralized resource.

We previously wrote about Germanys Regenerative Combined Power Plant, a project that proved

existing renewable energy technologies could provide 100% of the countrys electr icity. The project

blended three wind farms worth 12.6 MW, 20 solar PV plants totaling 5.5 MW, four biogas systems

equaling 4 MW and a pumped storage system wi th 8.4 GWh of storage. By using geographicall y

dispersed renewable resources that compliment one another, the plant operators were able to meet

needs on the grid as supply and demand shif ted. The project shows that with better information




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technologies and a balanced set of resources, the intermi ttency issue can be dealt with.

I t t While innovati ve grid management tools will allow us to scale wind and solar wi thout an equivalent

MW to MW backup, there wil l definitely be a need to better integrate renewables and fossil energies

to boost output and maximize current infr astructure.

Concentrating Solar Power can be a great way to increase eff icienciesof newer fossil fuel-based

infrastructure that may be around for a while. A number of companies are integrating direct-steam

CSP technologies into coal or natural gas plants. FPL recently fi nished a 75 MW combined

CSP/ natural gas plant in Florida, with plans to add 500 more MW of hybrid plants in the coming

years; Areva Solar is building a 44-MW plant at a coal facili ty in Australia; and GE, which recently

invested in e-Solar, plans to integrate CSP technology into its natural gas plants, boosti ng power

plant efficienciessubstantially.

In an ideal world, CSP would be developed on its own to phase out fossil -based plants. And that is

happening. But in order to scale thesetechnologies, drop costs and better uti li ze power plants that

are in operation (or switch from burning coal to far more efficient natural gas), the hybrid approachis a very attracti ve option. Heres how one type of direct-steam CSP plant works:




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To categori cally claim that i ntermit tent renewables cant scale without hurting the gri d ignores the

very real innovations that are evolving today.

As the IEAs Hugo Chandler explains: We want to explode the myth that theres a technological

limit.

Stephen Lacey is a reporter w ith Climate Progress, where this ar ti cle iscross-posted.

Tags: Energy, Innovation


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