Battery

Distribution Optimization: Ready for Takeoff

Part 2: Key choices on the way forward.

Integrated Distribution Planning (IDP) – much like its bulk power system cousin, Integrated Resource Planning (IRP) – provides a useful starting point for regulators and utilities to begin thinking about how to optimize the distribution system.
Byline: 

Sonia Aggarwal, Robbie Orvis and Michael O’Boyle

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Piggybacking on the Grid

Why net energy metering is unfair and inefficient.

While customers may have reached a “net zero” threshold on energy, they are a large net negative on very expensive grid services.
Byline: 

Charles E. Bayless

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The Driving Ambition of Elon Musk

An electric car in every driveway, a battery in every garage.

Tesla’s Elon Musk is driving the electric car off the lot and onto the premises of America’s electric utilities, proposing to build and sell energy storage batteries on both a residential and grid-wide scale – ideas that the chief executive will fully flesh out at the Edison Electric Institute’s annual meeting in New Orleans this June.
Byline: 

Ken Silverstein

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Duke Energy, LG Chem, Greensmith to Build Fast-Response Energy Storage System in Ohio

Submitted by aburr on Fri, 2015-05-29 13:40

Duke Energy, LG Chem and Greensmith teamed up to build a battery-based energy storage system in Ohio, designed to enhance reliability and increase stability on the electric power grid. The new 2-MW storage project will assist in regulating electric grid frequency for PJM, the transmission organization that powers much of the eastern U.S. The system will be built at Duke Energy's retired W.C. Beckjord coal-fired power plant in New Richmond, Ohio, and is expected to be operational by late 2015.

AES Energy Storage Unveiled 260 MW of Interconnected Global Projects

Submitted by aburr on Sun, 2015-05-03 20:25

AES Energy Storage unveiled a portion of its deployment roadmap for AES Advancion Energy Storage Solutions, which includes the addition of battery-based storage resources across the US, South America, and Europe. Projects in construction or late stage development are expected to deliver 260 MW of interconnected battery-based energy storage, equivalent to 520 MW of flexible power resource, 25% of which is expected to be on-line by mid-2016.

Energy Storage: The Utility's Best Friend

Perhaps the best way to think of energy storage is as an injection of much-needed intelligence for the grid. Energy storage will fine-tune the relationship between a bewilderingly complex asset base and a sprawling, diverse and demanding spectrum of customers in real time. Energy storage systems will act like energy grid computers and control systems, not just bulk repositories for electrons.
Byline: 

John Jung

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Microgrids: Friend or Foe for Utilities?

For many, it’s the next logical step for smart grid technology.

A small, but growing, number of utilities are embracing these technologies. Microgrids offer a networking platform that the utility can both aggregate and optimize.
Byline: 

Peter Asmus

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PG&E and BMW Partner to Extract Grid Benefits from Electric Vehicles

Submitted by aburr on Fri, 2015-01-09 13:46

Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) and automaker BMW are teaming up to test the ability of electric vehicle batteries to provide services to the electric grid. If successful, the pilot program could pave the way for utility payments that could stimulate further customer purchases of electric vehicles. PG&E selected BMW to manage a minimum of 100 kW of electric demand on PG&E's system. BMW will help PG&E manage power demand on its grid in two ways.