Hi Reddit!
Have you ever thought about how energy storage might transform our energy infrastructure if the storage systems were both safe and inexpensive? If so, then you've come to the right place.
I'm Kyle Bradbury, the Managing Director of the Energy Data Analytics Lab and Lecturing fellow at the Duke University Energy Initiative, and I research data analytics solutions to energy challenges. My background is in electrical engineering with a focus on machine learning and energy systems. I've worked on varied projects including the integration of wind and solar energy into the grid through energy storage and the evaluation of price arbitrage potential of energy storage, analysis of electric utility smart meter data for energy disaggregation, and machine learning techniques for automated energy resource assessment in aerial imagery data. I research and lead team-based student educational experiences in data science and energy systems, with teaching and effective communication of scientific information being personal passions of mine (happy to discuss any of these topics as well if of interest).
Energy storage comes in many forms: chemical (e.g. lead acid and lithium ion batteries), mechanical (e.g. pumped hydroelectric energy storage, compressed air energy storage, and flywheels), electrical (e.g. capacitors and ultracapacitors), and thermal (e.g. molten salt and hot water as in water heaters). Each of these technologies has different properties which makes it useful for some applications and almost useless for others. For example, pumped hydroelectric energy storage is highly economical for bulk energy storage, but hard to site and not useful for short-term energy storage. Flywheels are excellent for short term energy storage and electric grid frequency regulation, but would be ineffective for long term energy storage due to frictional losses. Energy storage systems are often defined by a number of key parameters including their efficiency (energy out vs energy in), their rate of self-discharge, the quantity of energy they can store (kWh) and the rate that they can be charged or discharged (kW), and the system cost.
Energy storage has many potential benefits, most of which come down to the fact that these storage devices reduce the necessity of generating and consuming energy simultaneously, as is the status quo in electric power systems. The moment a light bulb is turned on anywhere in the United States, somewhere else in the U.S., simultaneously, there must be a generator producing the energy that will be instantly consumed by that light. Power Markets in the United States are complex and have been designed that way to accommodate this need for simultaneous generation and use, and there are many market mechanisms for different timescales of energy consumption/generation from day ahead energy markets, to real-time energy markets and there are also ancillary service markets that include frequency regulation services to account for second-by-second deviations between electricity supply and demand, and reserves in case a generator experiences an outage. Energy storage may provide ways to simplify grid and market operations since they have the potential to (a) shave peaks in electricity demand, (b) integrate highly-variable wind and solar energy, (c) provide increased system reliability and backup power, and overall, (d) more effectively commoditize electricity to reduce complexity in grid market and operational needs. Of course, cost considerations have been one of the primary barriers to significant deployment to-date.
Lastly, energy storage is not only a potential tool for large utilities, but also for those of us who are everyday consumers of electricity. Companies like Tesla are starting to create residential batteries for energy storage which can be used for solar integration or time of use price optimization / arbitrage. Our homes' hot water heaters are thermal energy storage units waiting to be better-utilized. Such small-scale distributed energy storage could enable greater deployment of distributed generation.
Ask me anything about energy storage systems and their applications or any of the other topics mentioned above - I'm looking forward to your questions!
I’ll be back at 11 am EST (8 am PST, 3 pm UTC) to answer your questions, ask us anything!
Read and Review the full paper at TheWinnower.com