Supply Shifting

Generation Domain - The National Institute of Standards and Technology released a common semantic model for the Smart Grid in June 2009 - NIST worked with standards development organizations to form a common representation of information models for the smart grid

A. Natural Gas Fracking 
friday, may 18, 2012
Hydraulic fracturing has driven down the priceof natural gas from a high of $13 per million British Thermal Units (mmBTU) in 2008, natural gas prices have plummeted to below $2.50 per mmBTU, nearing record-setting lows, a game changer for both coal and renewables.  Is the process worth the risk?



B. Managing Variable Energy Resources (VER)
monday, may 14, 2012
Smart Grid technology will enable intermittent resources such as wind and solar to participate by providing visibility of renewable production and capacity


C. Distributed Energy Resources (DER)
saturday, may 19, 2012
According to Amory Levins of the Rocky Mountain Institute, all new central thermal power stations are now obsolete and uncompetitive. What will a larger number of smaller-distributed power plants mean for the Smart Grid?


D. Efficient Energy Storage
sunday, april 8, 2012
Required for the use of electricity generated from intermittent, renewable sources such as solar and wind. Low-cost electrical energy storage will transform renewable energy sources from a bit player to a mainstream role in our energy economy.


E. Battery Storage
thursday, august 2, 2012
Flow batteries can turn intermittent wind power from a utility manager's headache to a green and reliable energy source. Sodium-sulfur batteries make up a third of the overall installed grid energy storage market at 316 MW, followed by lead acid batteries (35 MW) and nickel cadmium batteries (27 MW),, then lithium-ion batteries (which are still expensive) follow with 20 MW. At the bottom of the list are redox-flow batteries with less than 3MW.

For frequency regulation by grid operators, who will want short bursts of energy and therefore a storage time measured in minutes, the least expensive choice is lead acid batteries, which cost $950-$1,590 per kilowatt, or $2,770-$3,800 per kilowatt-hour. Lithium-ion batteries follow with $1,085-$1,550 per kilowatt, or $4,340-$6,200 per kilowatt-hour.


F. Compressed Air Energy Storage (CAES)
friday, april 6, 2012
Off-peak electricity compresses air which is stored underground. When electricity demand is high, the compressed air is heated with a small amount of natural gas and then goes through a turbine to generate electricity. Follows far behind pumped hydro with 440 MW. The cheapest option when looking at megawatt-scale storage systems to support hours of storage. Compressed air technologies cost between $960-1250 per kilowatt, or $60-125 per kilowatt-hour.


G. Pumped Hydro
wednesday, april 18, 2012
Pumping water to a reservoir to release later to run generators, or pumped hydro, is an old approach and now makes up the biggest slice of the market. Over 127,000 MW of the global energy storage market, or a whopping 99 percent of it, belongs to pumped hydro.


H. Hydroelectric Uprating
sunday, august 12, 2012
Retrofitting dams to provide more generation at peak times is one of the most immediate, cost-effective, and environmentally acceptable means of developing additional electric power.


I. Thermal Energy Storage
friday april 13, 2012
Thermal storage in the building sector provides a buffer to balance fluctuations in supply and demand of low temperature thermal energy for space heating and cooling.


J. Flywheel
Wednesday, august 1, 2012
The most powerful flywheel energy storage systems currently for sale on the market can hold up to 133 kWh of energy. Flywheels, which are spinning discs, take in less than 25 MW of the market. Flywheels are the most expensive, at $1,950-$2,200 per kilowatt or $7,800-$8,800 per kilowatt hour.


K. Superconducting Magnetic Storage (SMES)
MONDAY, MARCH 7, 2011
More efficient than other storage methods because electric currents encounter almost no resistance.


L. Hydrogen Storage/Fuel Cells
tuesday, july 25, 2011
Using power from the grid to split water and store the resulting hydrogen

Classification of potential electrical storage for stationary applications