Thursday, September 27, 2007

Compulsory Battery Storage for Wind Farms?

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Compulsory Battery Storage?

Does Ireland need to make it compulsory for all wind farms to install Redox type battery storage in order to eliminate power fluctuations?

If wind generators had a sufficient degree of storage attached to them, they would be able to even out power demand v/s power generation. Much of the energy generated by windmills happens during the late night and early hours of the morning when there is a low demand for power. Then at breakfast time there are huge surges in the call for power with everyone switching on their toasters, kettles, coffee makers, radios, and heating systems. If the wind farms had say storage for even a half hour of power, they would be able to deal with most demand surges.

The ESB have been farting-on about the difficulties of wind power fluctuations - without of course actually doing much or indeed anything at all about it. If all wind farms had to install some sort of storage, even to the extent of 15 minute of rated output, it would even-out many of the power balancing problems - and shut the ESB up.

We could then aim for 100% wind power if we wanted.

Plurion, as Scottish company have developed the Redox flow battery to new levels of reliability and output. They have a very promising looking product indeed. Should we be looking in this direction??




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