[科技] 能源短缺是否将在电网中扮演重要角色？

All told,总之,Beacon Power信标权力's flywheels could provide 20 megawatts-worth of such frequency regulation as well as short-term energy storage for the state grid. 20年代megawatts-worth掉转可以提供这样的频率调整率以及短期储能,为国家电网。The only problem is that Beacon's owner went bankrupt in the process of putting the "alternating" into alternating current—after taking a loan for $39.5 million from the U.S. Department of Energy.唯一的问题是,灯塔的所有者破产过程中把“交流”的交替current-after以贷款3950万美元来自美国能源部。

"Our company has been operating at a loss," Beacon Power CEO Bill Capp said November 1 in“我们公司已经亏损,”首席执行官说权力法案灯塔Capp 11月1日于prepared statement准备好的声明[pdf] explaining the bankruptcy. (pdf)解释了破产。"Our goal in taking this action is to minimize job loss and to continue to find ways to apply our innovative technology in the frequency regulation and energy storage markets."“我们的目标是极小化采取这一行动的工作损失,并且继续寻找适用技术创新在频率调节和储能市场”。

The good news is that the flywheels are still making money—not enough to keep Beacon in business but enough to potentially pay back the American taxpayer. 好消息是,掉转-不仅仅只是仍在足够的东西,来维持在商业,但却足够灯塔潜在偿还美国纳税人。The flywheels also represent a growing trend in electricity grids worldwide—storage. 这也代表了一个掉转worldwide-storage电力网的增长趋势。Sodium sulfur batteries have been used to store electricity from Japan's grid since 2002 and to钠硫电池已被用来储存电能从日本网格,2002年back up Xcel Energy's wind farms备份Xcel能源的风能in Minnesota since 2008.在明尼苏达州,自2008年以来。Molten salts help a power plant in Sicily store the sun's heat熔融盐帮助电厂在西西里商店太阳的热量to turn into electricity at night and on cloudy days. 变成电在夜间和在阴天里。Even甚至water水pumped uphill at various sites across the U.S. and air compressed into an underground cavern in Alabama, among other places, store electrical energy when it is cheap and give it back when it is expensive. 在不同的地点抽艰难在美国和空气压缩成一个地下洞穴中在阿拉巴马,在其他地方,储存电能时,它很便宜,并归还时,它是非常昂贵的。Such storage is considered vital to help intermittent renewable resources, such as the wind and sun, play a bigger role in U.S.—and global—energy supply, but it may be that Beacon's flywheels are simply too expensive to compete with the other technologies on offer.这样被认为是至关重要的存储帮助间歇性再生资源,诸如风能和太阳能,发挥更大的作用global-energy U.S.-and供应量,但它可能是灯塔掉转太昂贵的竞争提供各种处理技术。

"Flywheels掉转don't typically hold as much energy as batteries," notes Haresh Kamath, strategic program manager at the Electric Power Research Institute's Technology Innovation Program—an industry-funded research group. 别通常持有多少能源电池,"音符Haresh Kamath、战略项目经理在电力研究所的技术创新Program-an industry-funded研究小组。"But they last a very long time and that makes them attractive in some applications, especially where the system is cycled very often—that is, where it is discharged and charged repeatedly across a short time period."“但是他们持续很长时间,这让他们在某些行业的应用有吸引力,特别是在该系统是非常often-that循环,在排放并被指控在短时间内重复周期。”

A一个new analysis新的分析published November 17 in Science by Kamath and colleagues found that batteries are rapidly becoming cheaper and allow for storing electricity generated when it is not in demand (for instance, during the strong winds that blow late at night when lights are off and factories typically shut down) and using it when it is (daytime peaks). 11月17日发表在科学Kamath和同事发现,电池迅速成为便宜,允许存储发电量当它不是在需求(比如,在强风吹晚了,当灯都关掉工厂关闭和典型),使用它时,它是(白天峰)。Such storage would greatly extend the potential use of renewables for power but also reduce the necessary investment in the grid itself. 这种存储将大大延长了对可再生能源的潜在用途为动力,而且可以减少所需的投资在网格本身。In the past it has been cheaper to build a new power plant and lay more cable to connect it to the grid than to install a large battery system. 过去的让它更便宜建造一个新发电厂和敷设更多电缆连接到网格比安装一个大的电池系统。"The initial cost of batteries today is prohibitively high in most cases," Kamath explains. “初始投资成本,但今天是禁止地高电池在大多数情况下,“Kamath解释说。And "the life of batteries is relatively short: Batteries last just a few years but most grid components last for decades."和“生命的电池较短:电池上个几年但是大多数网格组件持续数十年的战争。”

但现在更昂贵的建立新的输电线路和其它的网格硬件,使电池存储可能更有吸引力。"Cost is given as the reason that energy storage is“成本的原因,给出了储能not widely used on the grid没有广泛应用于网格," the researchers wrote, and cost reductions in lithium ion batteries—thanks to potential wide-scale deployment in electric vehicles—may change that equation. 研究人员写道,降低成本在锂离子batteries-thanks潜在的大规模部署在电动vehicles-may变化方程。Big lithium ion batteries may soon be made very inexpensively and in large volumes, making them finally cheap enough for widespread grid storage applications, along with other possibilities. 大的锂离子电池可能很快就会变得非常廉价而大量,使他们最后便宜得广泛网格存储应用,随着其他可能性。"“Electric vehicles themselves can act as storage电动汽车本身作为存储," Kamath notes. ,“Kamath笔记。"Of course, the owner of the vehicle would have to agree to that."“当然,业主的车辆将不得不同意。”

Already, power company AES has opened the nation's已、电力公司AES打开国家的largest battery installation最大的电池安装in Elkins, W. Va. More than 30 megawatts-worth of lithium ion batteries from A123 Systems have been hooked up to the company's 98 megawatts-worth of GE wind turbines to ensure a steadier power output.在Elkins刊Va。超过30 megawatts-worth锂离子电池从A123系统已经被连接到公司的98 megawatts-worth GE风力涡轮机来确保一个稳定的输出功率。

There is already a technological leader in the cheap storage area, however: pumped hydro, which accounts for 99 percent of the 127,000 megawatts–worth of electricity storage in use today worldwide. 已经有一个科技领先的廉价存储区,然而:泵水力发电、占99%的127000 megawatts-worth今天使用的电力储存在世界各地。Its spread is limited only by geography, geology and concrete. 其传播仅限制于地理、地质和混凝土。And, ultimately, more advanced storage options—whether batteries or flywheels—may be undone by another competitor:并最终更先进的存储options-whether电池或flywheels-may不是依靠另一个竞争对手:combined-cycle turbines that employ natural gascombined-cycle涡轮使用天然气and can be started up in seconds. 并且可以在几秒内就开始了。"We need new technologies and techniques to make batteries lower cost, longer-lived and more efficient," Kamath says, especially to compete with fossil fuel–fired alternatives.“我们需要新技术、新工艺和新技术,降低成本,较长寿电池更有效率,“Kamath说,尤其是竞争与化石运行的替代品。