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It’s the fatal flaw of wind power: once the wind stops blowing, the power stops flowing — or does it?
Researchers from the University of Minnesota are using the nation’s first wind-to-battery system as a model for developing techniques to harness wind energy so it can be stored and used later. Currently, most wind farms don’t have the capability to store excess energy from windy days to be used on calm days.
Since February, seven wind turbines in Luverne, Minn. have been connected to an 80-ton battery to test its ability to store the power generated and release it at varying time intervals.
The operation is hooked up to computer software that allows chemical engineering professor William Smyrl and electrical engineering professor Ned Mohan to monitor it online. So far, things are running smoothly, Smyrl said.
Xcel Energy purchased the battery, the size of two semitrailers, from a Japanese supplier in early 2008. The company has poured at least $1 million into the project.
Frank Novachek, Xcel’s director of corporate planning , said storing wind energy will act as a shock absorber and help their system run more efficiently.
“It would smooth out the ups and downs that wind has on our system,” he said.
There are often times when Xcel doesn’t use all of the energy generated by a wind farm in a given day, and without a way to store it, that energy is lost, Novachek said.
For Mohan, the big question surrounds the amount of storage capacity a battery must have in order to sufficiently supply the power grid with wind energy.
Although the feasibility and cost-effectiveness of storage is still unclear, it’s important to use wind power as much and as soon as possible, Mohan said. Smyrl said wind power is attractive because it’s completely clean; nothing is burned or emitted. He also pointed out its easy maintenance.
“Once you put up wind turbines, all you have to do is watch them work,” he said.
As of now, it’s a small-scale project, running on a one-megawatt storage system, significantly less than most wind farms, which operate in the realm of 200 to 400 mega-watts.
Other large-scale renewable energy techniques, like pumped hydropower and compressed air storage, operate at levels of 300 mega-watts or more, Smyrl said.
It would take a lot of batteries for the wind-to-battery technique to reach that level. In Luverne, for example, it would mean 300 more batteries — or a warehouse-full rather than a shed-full, Smyrl said, adding that when it would come down to running them all simultaneously, “that’s a bigger headache.”
The largest barrier to the project is the high cost of the batteries, Novachek said, although he’s confident the price will go down in the future.
The project comes after the state passed a law in February requiring utility companies to generate 25 percent of their energy from renewable sources by 2025. For Xcel Energy, which provides half of the state’s energy, the standards are stricter, requiring that 30 percent of their output come from renewables by 2020, with at least 25 percent of the renewable energy being wind.
Although he’s confident Xcel will be able to reach that goal without the use of wind storage, Novachek said he hopes the project will increase their capacity to use wind power.
“We are trying to do whatever we can to take on as much renewable energy as possible,” he said. “We believe that storage will help us to do that.”
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Localize the wind energy
How about putting windmills in neighborhoods that will generate enough power for that area with smaller/cheaper batteries. Needs less infrastructure (power lines are already in place) and less power loss from the transmission lines.
Batteries and wind farms
If it was cheap and easy - it would have already been done. Smaller turbines run faster, make more noise, are a greater nuisance. Think of a bathroom fan, running all the time, inside, outside, while you're sleeping. Larger turbines must be spread out for efficient operation, need to be on the higher points of land, can not be blocked by hills etc - so it's not unusual to find that it make take 100 or 1000 acres of land per turbine. And they're quieter. The blades turn at maybe 20 RPM, and are virtually noiseless in just several hundred yards at most. Since they're only one per hundreds of acres, reports of big turbine noise are vastly overblown. And that's to say nothing of the magnitude of power that is being delivered. The reality is utilities have developed conventional power sources - not because they are pro coal or pro oil or pro nuclear, just that it's the lowest cost way to deliver power to the people. Put the other way around - alternative power means your bills will be going up.
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It is so amazing that how the energy of wind can be very useful in our daily lives. Generating power from the wind with the use of windmill is very marvelous. God is really wonderful!
The thought of localizing the wind energy is very remarkable.
Energy Idealist - Renewable Energy Jobs
If you localize wind energy
If you localize wind energy in that manner it sometimes requires the separation (Islanding due to intermittent power sources) of that section of the grid, many places cannot do that.
It is a lot easier to do this with digital power protection relays, but the sad fact of the matter is, plenty of utilities still use "Dumb" electromechanical power protection devices.
Xcel already has partners that make SMART devices, check it out; Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories, a 100% employee owned company in Washington State has already worked with Xcel on "Smart Grid City" Boulder, Colo.
SEL has been putting SMART devices on power grids for 25 years now, and in many cases, the utilities that use the devices SEL manufactures only need to turn on certain communication features to access the data a smart grid needs.
windpower
we should re-think our strategies Windspires (verticle axis wind turbines)are a practical
solution see Mariah Power's version- 2 units @ $3800 means I generate as much electricy as I need - I will soon be selling to exelon. Of course I use ONLY 300 kw monthly!
and if 10% of citizens used this our country would be in much better shape!
Two additional strategies would be to ban incandescent bulbs & cfls and mandate/promote
the use of Led lighting. We the people should be deriving the benefits of the use of
Ultra - capicitors -think of of a Prious battery reduce to 2 square inch cube these exist now,
the challenge is to pry them away from the defense depts hidden vaults and away from the
(very evil oil companies)& entities that hold the patent rights exxon/connoco/bp etc.
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Also, who said anything about
Also, who said anything about paying off the University? This project isn't on University property; it's City of Minneapolis property. The U has nothing to do with this. Aerospace Engineering degree AND online associate Degree
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