Hawai’i Natural Energy Institute awards firm contract for Altairnano Energy Storage System
27 January 2011
Altair Nanotechnologies, Inc. has been awarded a firm contract with the Hawai’i Natural Energy Institute (HNEI) of the University of Hawai’i at Manoa to supply a one-megawatt ALTI-ESS energy storage system for a test of wind energy integration. (Earlier post.)
The system will be installed at the Hawi wind farm on the island of Hawai’i and connected to the Hawai’i Electric Light Company (HELCO) utility grid.
The equipment purchase and associated service contracts, valued at approximately $1.8 million, require Altairnano to build, ship, install and commission its ALTI-ESS advanced energy storage system, and provide technical support and system monitoring and reporting over a period of three years. The project is expected to be operational by the third quarter of 2011.
The research project, funded through a grant from the Office of Naval Research, is designed to test the performance characteristics of the battery system and to demonstrate the effectiveness of battery storage technology to integrate wind energy into an electric grid. The test is expected to demonstrate solutions for integration of greater levels of renewable energy onto the grid, improving capacity utilization, and reducing dependency on fossil-fuel power generation while maintaining grid performance and reliability.
This is a good test case for clean e-energy storage. Ireland has done it a few years ago. As more and more wind energy is harnessed, more e-energy storage will be required.
Posted by: HarveyD | 27 January 2011 at 05:14 PM
It's not really energy storage, it is power conditioning - to smooth the output of a wind farm feeding the grid.
It is a 1 Mw, 250 KwH system so it is all about smoothing, rather than storage or time shifting.
They don't say what percentage wind they are at - I wonder how far they can go (with wind) as they are a small island (unlike Denmark) without access to hydro (Norway) or a large grid (Germany) to buffer their wind variability.
Posted by: mahonj | 28 January 2011 at 12:05 AM
You have given many good reasons why they should upgrade the e-storage capabilities (if it wasn't the original idea) and not restrict it to power conditioning or smoothing.
Posted by: HarveyD | 28 January 2011 at 06:30 AM
Harvey, I agree, power storage would be very good, but it is just so expensive. In most cases, the best you can hope to do is to smooth the ramp up and ramp down curves for wind so you can being in other generators in an orderly manner.
If you have a lot, you may be able to store energy at night and release it during the evening peak (or whenever you have your peak).
This works well on a daily (store at night, release during the same day) basis, but it doesn't really help with renewables which are much more variable.
Being able to timeshift 3 hours worth of electricity is insufficient if you have a week long inversion and have no wind for a week. In this case, you have to run your generators all the time.
So while you can reduce your fossil fuel usage, you can't shut down any fossil plants (and save money in this way).
You end up with doubling up on all your generator plant.
If you are importing oil or diesel, it may make sense as the fuel is expensive (as in Hawaii).
But if you are using a cheaper source, it may not save much money.
Posted by: mahonj | 28 January 2011 at 09:16 AM
Hawaii makes for an excellent test bed for alternative energy systems. Wind is such a variable as to require fossil backup, ESS like Altairnano, and the wind turbines themselves. That's a lot of hardware to generate usable energy and it can be expected to cost a lot for consumers.
Hawaii should also fund a serious geo-therm plant that accesses the constant heat from volcanic sources. This would be a RELIABLE heat source far more constant than wind and able to generate electricity 24/7.
Good on ALTI for finding yet another product type to leverage their excellent technology.
Posted by: Reel$$ | 30 January 2011 at 08:56 PM