Energy Storage - Articles - Zimbio

Smart Meters and Thermal Storage

Tue, 7 Mar 2007 01:53:21 GMT

posted by texasgrand

The first step in wide scale deployment of Thermal Energy Storage TES and other demand side management tools is wide spread deployment of smart electric meters. Smart meters allow customers to buy power at lower cost when demand is low. There are a few people that will simply turn their A/C off when prices get high on a summer afternoon, but I think most people are like me and want to crank the A/C down and enjoy the cool during the hottest parts of the day. I will be one of the TES air conditioning system owners.

Many utilities are currently deploying smart meters. See the following article.

BGE sets rewards to limit home use: Incentives aim to reduce electricity demand at peak times, persuade customers to conserve

Jan. 23, 2007 (McClatchy-Tribune Business News delivered by Newstex) –
By Paul Adams

Baltimore Gas and Electric will announce today a plan intended to reduce power demand at peak times and give customers more control over soaring energy bills by installing “smart” meters at every home and boosting incentives for conservation.

BGE will offer new financial rewards for customers to shift their power use to off-peak hours and will expand existing programs that pay customers to let BGE remotely control use of air conditioners and water heaters on days when energy demand is high.
The plans will be filed with the state Public Service Commission today. They will be paired with stepped-up conservation programs that pay customers rebates for replacing older appliances with high-efficiency models. The programs will be voluntary and will work only if enough people participate to make a measurable difference in demand on the power grid.

The initiative comes as BGE is phasing in a sharp rate increase that sparked a consumer and political backlash against electricity deregulation last year. It puts the company in step with a growing number of utilities worldwide that are turning to smart meters and other so-called “demand-response” technology to cut costs and trim peak demand for power, which reached a record in BGE territory during last summer’s heat wave.

“At the end of the day, you’ll pay less than you would have paid had we not done this,” said Kenneth W. DeFontes Jr., president of BGE.

The technology works in part by allowing utilities to remotely measure a customer’s power use hourly, eliminating the need for meter readers. That makes it easier for utilities to offer a variety of time-of-use pricing schemes that reward customers for, say, not running the dishwasher until evening.

Some critics say utilities might be better off spending their money solely to reduce power consumption rather than on shifting it to different times of day. And there is skepticism that utility customers will want to sort through myriad pricing schemes and take greater control of their energy use, which is a key component of the plan. Phone companies have discovered that many customers prefer the simplicity of a flat rate for local and long-distance calling even though some pay more in the long run.

“Some customers — especially the residential class — I don’t think will be interested in it at all and are probably willing to pay just a bit more to keep it simple,” said Ken Rose, an independent utility consultant in Columbus, Ohio.

But utility officials and state regulators see the technology as a critical step in managing Maryland’s growing energy demand at a time when no new power plants are being constructed.

Maryland imports nearly 30 percent of its power from neighboring states and is especially vulnerable to the volatility of the wholesale energy market.

The market price of electricity can soar from $80 or less per megawatt hour to more than $1,000 during the peak afternoon hours of a heat wave. That’s because energy producers must turn on expensive natural gas and oil-powered generators to meet demand at critical times. Those plants might operate less than 100 hours annually but have a disproportionate impact on rates in the deregulated wholesale market, where prices are linked to the most expensive power in use.

Shaving peak demand by just a few percent on a regular basis can reduce the need to build more power plants and lower rates significantly, energy experts and consumer advocates say.

“Those peak times really drive up the price to everyone,” said Theresa Czarski of the Maryland Office of the People’s Counsel, which represents consumers.
Czarski said the People’s Counsel will study BGE’s plans to ensure that the potential benefits aren’t outweighed by the substantial capital investment required.
BGE will start later this year with a roughly $10 million pilot program to outfit about 5,000 homes with smart-meter technology. A smaller number also will get new programmable thermostats and remote-control switches for appliances. If the program is ultimately rolled out across its service territory, BGE’s customers could be asked to pay up to $350 million to $450 million for new equipment, with the expectation of getting a much larger return over time. The program’s cost would be factored into the utility’s electricity delivery charge.
Cost estimates are difficult because the company has not selected vendors for some aspects of the program. A similar program by Pacific Gas & Electric in California resulted in a temporary 1 percent rate increase, though proponents say the program will pay for itself several times over.

“We wouldn’t do any of these programs if we didn’t think they were going to save money,” DeFontes said.
Industry analysts say success depends on whether the financial incentives are large enough to get people to participate.

BGE might offer customers lower rates for agreeing to reduce usage during peak hours on the hottest days every summer. Customers will be notified which days to reduce power, by either e-mail or a signal sent through a smart thermostat, which will have a display screen and be controlled remotely by BGE.

BGE has about 100,000 customers on a less sophisticated time-of-use pricing program, which offers a small reward to those who shift power use to off-peak hours. The new program will offer more options and greater financial incentives, DeFontes said.

The company also hopes to boost the rewards for customers who allow it to cycle air conditioners and water heaters on and off during hot days, from $10 a month in the summer to at least $12.50 per month. About 200,000 — roughly 20 percent of BGE’s 1.1 million residential customers-participate now, but the utility hopes to convince more than a third of its customers to sign up over the next three to four years.

With smart thermostats, the utility could also pay customers for permission to remotely raise their room-temperature settings on very hot days.

The company expects to get regulatory approval for the pilot program within a few months. It will take several years to install an estimated 1.8 million electric and gas meters in every BGE home.

“I think our predictions are that if we do these programs, we’re hoping to achieve 10 percent energy savings over 10 years,” DeFontes said.
paul.adams@baltsun.com
Newstex ID: KRTB-0034-13791417

Open Letter to Rural Electric Cooperatives

Wed, 22 Feb 2007 22:03:44 GMT

posted by texasgrand

As an energy industry professional I am becoming alarmed at the increasing cost of energy. I look at my electric bill and think this is really convenient and reasonably priced energy, but I know if we don’t get proactive, the price is going to change significantly.

I’m going to ask you to join me and get proactive and solve this problem. If you don’t provide leadership, we will all suffer.

The biggest bottleneck to maintaining low cost global electric prices is ENERGY STORAGE. Unless we solve the storage problem, peak demand will continue to drive prices higher. The mood of the country and the world has reached the tipping point. Even if the environmental concerns with global warming are not manmade, the economic effects of supply and demand will continue to drive prices higher. I think the majority of informed world residents feel it’s not worth the risks to continue down our current path.

The are several technologies on the horizon that have the potential to solve the energy storage problem, but only one of them is proven, cost effective technology. I had to ask myself why this technology has not been deployed on a massive scale. The answer to that question follows:

Electric energy prices have historically been averaged. The low cost, low demand energy is averaged with the high cost high demand energy. Because of this the end user does not benefit from buying low demand energy because it costs as much as high demand energy.

Some electric utilities have offered token incentives to use low demand (off-peak) electric energy, but those programs have been few and far between. The investor owned utilities owe it to their stockholders to keep the lion’s share of the profits and not pass them on to the consumer.

I’ve been racking my brain trying to figure out how to get the lion’s share of the low cost, low demand energy to the end user so they would purchase and deploy demand limiting technology.

My first thought was that government would have to force the investor owned utilities to offer ten times their current token rebates to put the lion’s share of the savings in the consumer’s hand. My conclusion was that the utility lobby would never let this happen.

The answer was to own the electric generating and distribution assets. My initial thoughts were to buy or partner with renewable or carbon neutral energy generators such as wind turbines and bio wood fired power turbines. It finally dawned on me that I am already a part owner of an electric company; I’m a member of a rural electric coop.

Environmental issues aside, economics prohibits building new power plants.

Demand and supply are the major components of the cost of electricity. If we lower peak demand, supply will increase and the cost of power will fall significantly.

The primary method available to reduce demand is to make ice when electricity is cheap. Melt the ice for air conditioning when electricity is expensive or in high demand. This is a simple alternative to spending billions building new coal fired electric power plants.

Thermal Energy Storage, TES systems have been in use since the early 1920’s when three Dallas area churches put in systems. One of the original applications was to use a small inexpensive compressor to make ice all week long and then melt all that ice to cool the sanctuary for two hours on Sunday. The church my parents were married in (Lovers Lane United Methodist) had a system installed prior to WWII. I consulted with them to rebuild or replace the system in the early 1980’s. A common TES system is using tank type water heaters (hot thermal storage) to avoid large instantaneous gas or electric water heaters.

So why don’t we find a TES air conditioner in every house and small business? The answer is also simple:

Most electric rates are averaged so it is not less expensive to buy electricity when it should be cheap and it is not more expensive to buy electricity in high demand periods when the price should be exponentially higher.
In very round numbers it costs thousands of dollars per kW (or ton of A/C) to fund the construction of electric generation plants, transmission and distribution (TD) infrastructure. There are no mechanisms to divert funds from coal fired generators to funding TES systems in your home or business. The current conservative estimate of avoided costs to build generation, transmission and distribution infrastructure is $1000. Per kW per year. This adds up to more than $45,000. Over the 15 year life of a 3 ton TES system. You can buy a 3 ton TES system for about $15,000.

Should we invest $45,000 in new coal generating plants or invest $15,000 in your home TES system?

If the above economic rationalization isn’t enough to convince you, consider the following additional benefits on TES.

Running your air conditioner at night to make ice for daytime use is much more efficient because the ambient outside temperature is much lower and you’re a/c unit operates more efficiently.
Running the generating turbine at night is much more efficient for the same reason, lower nighttime temperatures.
All power plants run more efficiently when they are fully loaded and demand is predictable.
Transmission and distribution is more efficient at night.
Wind energy is 95% off peak and must have energy storage in the future to grow.

A massive deployment of TES will postpone the need to build additional power plants for many years and lower the cost of power for consumers. We can land on the moon. Why can’t we make ice to stay cool?

I’m asking all co-ops to fund TES demonstration projects for the 2007 season and provide ttheir members with incentives they can’t turn down.

IceCycle Thermal Storage

Fri, 24 Feb 2007 15:41:31 GMT

posted by texasgrand

The storage of electric energy is vitally important, but often neglected for other green options. If energy storage could be deployed in sufficient quantity throughout Texas, it would eliminate the need for ALL the currently proposed power plants, and the need for many of the most polluting existing power plants. Power plants have to be built to serve short spikes in peak demand because air conditioning drives up peak demand. Thermal energy storage (TES) lowers spikes in peak demand by storing surplus energy in off peak periods, and utilizing this stored energy during periods of high peak demand. Thermal energy storage is an established and proven technology for larger facilities, but has not been available for mass deployment in smaller facilities. Trinity Thermal Systems in Texas has a new patented product called ‘IceCycle’ that captures and stores off peak air conditioning energy for homes and smaller business facilities.

IceCycle is a Green Energy Product that saves energy, eliminates the need for new power plants, and qualifies for LEED points. IceCycle shifts up to 95% of air conditioning energy consumption to less expensive off peak periods and saves up to 20% in energy. IceCycle simply and seamlessly harnesses the energy of the smaller unitary air conditioning systems, which most of us use in our homes and businesses daily. Conventional TES systems address large commercial facilities, but IceCycle can be deployed for the masses. From a UT-MBA study on potential markets for IceCycle, 94% of all commercial buildings use the smaller unitary air conditioning systems that IceCycle works with. Almost all of our homes use unitary air conditioning. IceCycle’s unique Smart Controller can also control and shift the energy consumption for other appliances, such as water heaters and pool pumps.

Off peak cooling is not only less expensive, but more efficient because it is done in cooler nighttime temperatures with less strain on air conditioning equipment. Power plants save energy at night too. According to a California Energy Commission (CEC) study… “Using power at night instead of during the afternoon can reduce power plant energy consumption and pollution by 20% to 43%, as base-loaded power plants running at night when it is cooler are far more efficient than peaker plants being operated in the heat of the day”. (http://www.roi-engineering.com/new_articles/SolutiontotheEnergyCrisis.pdf) Guest blog post by Mark Glover-CEO & David Anderson-COO of Trinity Thermal Systems - co-founders, inventors, and pioneers in green energy storage technology. http://www.trinity-thermal.com/

Build Thermal Storage, Not Power Plants

Thu, 29 Dec 2006 03:22:47 GMT

posted by texasgrand

The following is part of a report written by: Scot M. Duncan, P.E.

The concepts discussed herein apply to any utility, state or region

facing pollution issues, power generation capacity shortages, or transmission and

distribution congestion and having the desire to improve power plant efficiency and

reduce the need to build new power plants.

There is no one silver bullet, there are many proven technologies and business models that applied

collectively or individually can bring real improvements. One such technology that

can provide immediate benefits is Thermal Energy Storage (TES).

• Thermal Energy Storage is the simple process of cooling (or freezing) water

during the evening hours and storing it for use the next day to air condition

large commercial, industrial and institutional buildings.

• TES is the rough equivalent of building electricity generating power plants in

the sense that TES taps the unused capacity in our existing power plants at

night when they are typically operating at very low output levels.

• Using TES in lieu of building new power plants allows for an effective

increase in capacity during the peak usage hours, without any of the

negative environmental impacts associated with building new power plants.

• TES simultaneously increases the efficiency of existing transmission and

distribution facilities in addition to the benefits it provides for generation

plants.

• With properly crafted incentives and rate structures, the private sector

could be enticed to contribute a significant percentage of the capital

required to build a very large number of TES systems, essentially subsidizing other ratepayers.

TES is a fully-proven technology that can improve power plant efficiency by 20% to

43%, improve cooling system efficiency by up to 25%, and reduce cooling system

related peak electrical demands by 60% to 80% on the hottest summer afternoons,

by shifting major air conditioning related electrical loads to the night instead of the

afternoon.

Properly designed, implemented and commissioned TES systems provide long term

benefits to all ratepayers and the environment.

It is a simple concept on its face – if a power plant can be made more energy

efficient, it will use less fuel. If it uses less fuel, it will produce fewer emissions and

the environment will be improved from the resulting reduction in harmful

greenhouse gasses, acid rain, and toxic pollutants such as mercury.

Sustainable peak demand reduction will reduce the potential for costly brownouts or

blackouts as well as reducing the need for expensive infrastructure improvements.

This improves the reliability and affordability of electric power for all ratepayers.

One Engineer has been quoted as saying “Think of TES like a 1,000 MW power

plant that consumes no natural resources, and reduces pollution from other power

plants, and you can persuade building owners to pick up half the cost of the system

that benefits all of the ratepayers.”

Electric Energy Supply and Demand

Mon, 27 Feb 2007 21:39:14 GMT

posted by texasgrand

Following is a clarification from Mark Glover, Trinity Thermal Systems.“It is not only how much, but when we use electricity that is important. Storage is an integral part of every manmade system we have. We have food in our pantries, fuel in our car gas tanks, and water in our water towers to meet our needs on demand. Man’s greatest machine is our mass network of electricity and grid, but it does not have storage built in. The supply and demand of electricity must perfectly balance every minute of every day. Standby electric capacity must exist to instantly ramp up to the highest possible peak demand at a moments notice, with reserve capacity of ten to fifteen percent in case demand is under estimated or mechanical breakdown occurs. If we fail to meet even a moment of this growing demand, we have blackouts or brownouts that paralyze our business economy and threaten the health of our families.

Power plants and transmission grid are expensive, polluting, and few want them in their backyard. New generation and transmission capacity is needed with ever growing demand. Renewable energy holds promise, but cannot realistically replace coal and natural gas for source generating fuel in the next few decades. Coal is America’s most abundant and cost effective natural resource for source energy, but is polluting and the price of coal generation is increasing.

Thermal Energy Storage (TES) is a large part of the solution. Thermal energy storage lowers spikes in peak demand by storing surplus energy capacity in off peak periods, and utilizing this stored energy during periods of high peak demand. TES greatly reduces the need for new electric capacity, helps existing generation run more efficient, reduces pollution, and saves energy costs. TES also stores wind and solar energy, to help renewable energy reach its full potential.”