Category Archives: Energy Storage

Intermittent wind, solar, and wave power can not replace fossil fuels and nuclear power electricity generation without energy storage

How are energy storage batteries coming along? U.S. House hearing 2015

Posted on April 5, 2017 by

[ My favorite quotes from this U.S. House of Representatives session: THOMAS MASSIE, KENTUCKY. I want to say this has been a very enlightening hearing, and it confirms my personal experience, which is batteries are not sexy. Buckets of acid … Continue reading →

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How is California’s AB2514 experiment with utility scale battery storage coming along?

Posted on December 3, 2016 by

[ This is an excellent article by Tod Kiefer about tests of sodium-sulfur batteries, which are the only kind of battery for which there is enough material on earth to make. Battery electric storage is meant to “replace nimble, fast-ramping … Continue reading →

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Is large-scale energy storage dead?

Posted on July 18, 2016 by

 April 8, 2016 by Roger Andrews at euanmearns.com Many countries have committed to filling large percentages of their future electricity demand with intermittent renewable energy, and to do so they will need long-term energy storage in the terawatt-hours range. But … Continue reading →

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Utility, large-scale battery energy storage

Posted on August 15, 2015 by

Hodson, H. July 25, 2015. Power to the people. NewScientist. Demand for electricity varies every second, minute, hour, day, and season.  Production is easy to provide from always-ready natural gas and coal. But as we move towards a 100% renewable … Continue reading →

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Turlock AB 2514 California Energy Storage

Posted on June 5, 2015 by

Notes from 29 page: Turlock Irrigation district Energy Storage Study. 2014. Willie G. Manuel 9/17/2014 Recommendation. The analysis performed shows that the benefits of deploying various types of storage systems fall short of the capital cost of such systems. Furthermore, … Continue reading →

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Vernon VG&E AB 2514 Energy storage report

Posted on June 5, 2015 by

STAFF REPORT: VERNON GAS & ELECTRIC DEPARTMENT   September 2, 2014 [some of the 25-page report is shown below as I attempted to get up to speed on energy storage. Since California is the first state to mandate this, and … Continue reading →

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Wind, solar, and storage impact on the California grid

Posted on June 4, 2015 by

California Energy commission. June 2010. Research evaluation of wind generation, solar generation, and storage impact on the California Grid. 131 pages. Excerpts: This report analyzes the effect of increasing renewable energy generation on California’s electricity system and assesses and quantifies … Continue reading →

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Sacramento SMUD AB 2514 Energy storage report

Posted on June 4, 2015 by

[The state of California has realized that it’s unlikely a larger or national transmission grid will be built to share and balance variable renewable power, and is going to Plan B, energy storage. The problem is, all of the utilities … Continue reading →

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Hydropower has a very low energy density

Posted on March 17, 2015 by

To store the energy contained in 1 gallon of gasoline requires over 55,000 gallons to be pumped up 726 feet (CCST 2012). As a thought experiment look at what it would take generate all of America’s 4,058 TWh electricity, where … Continue reading →

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CSP Barriers and Obstacles

Posted on March 9, 2015 by

Location must be in the desert Southwest Unlike solar PV, CSP can’t cope with humidity or cloud cover, so it is limited to the southwest were the solar irradiation is high and there is no dust, haze, or smog.  Solar … Continue reading →

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