Archive for energy experts
Renewables and the Grid Conference – May 13-14, 2009 | Almas Temple Club, Washington, DC
Posted by: | CommentsPart Two of an Interconnected Conference with:
National Energy Policy
Transmission holds the key to meeting renewable energy goals nationwide. It is projected that nearly all easily accessible wind sites will be exhausted within two to four years, and both utility-scale solar and geothermal are likewise transmission constrained. Hundreds of billions of dollars of investment in transmission megaprojects, smart grid technology and power storage are needed to support the coming wave of renewable development. What national policy changes will be implemented regarding transmission siting, cost allocation, smart grid commercialization and energy storage? What impacts are state and local initiatives like CREZ, WREZ and RETI having on the development of transmission to serve renewables? Will queuing issues for renewable projects be solved?
The Renewables and the Grid Conference will bring together utilities, regulators, ISOs and renewable energy developers to discuss how to overcome regulatory and operational challenges to facilitate the delivery of renewable energy. They will explore the potential changes to national transmission siting and cost allocation policies; the expansion of incentives for smart grid commercialization and power storage; and the effectiveness of state and local initiatives to drive the construction of transmission to bring renewable energy to load centers. Finally, they will examine the status of transmission megaprojects proposed to serve renewable energy as well as pilot energy storage projects.
The conference will be closely tied to another event, The National Energy Policy Conference, which will unite utilities, independent power producers, regulators, renewable energy companies and other stakeholders to discuss the latest national energy policy developments.
Key Industry Players Discuss Bringing Renewable
Energy to the Grid, Covering:
- Updates on Queue Reform
- WREZ, CREZ and RETI
- Green Grid Initiatives
- Status and Update for Megaprojects
- Power Storage and Advanced Batteries
- Transmission Siting Reform
- Cost Allocation for Transmission Projects
- Smart Grid Commercialization
- Advanced Batteries and Energy Storage Commercialization
Time is running out for UK flagship wind project London Array
Posted by: | CommentsGregory Barker, the Shadow minister for climate change writing in the Sunday Times, 1st Feb, “Brown has a Power Failure” points out that unless a decision is made soon to go ahead with the London Array in the Thames Estuary, then National Grid will miss the slot allocated to upgrade the Grid in time.
Apparently National Grid will soon be devoting all their efforts to sorting out the supplies for the Olympics in 2012, and after that NG will be fully booked on other projects.
Barker says that the decision to invest or not, must be made in the next few months, or possible weeks. With the fall in the pound, and most of the stuff priced in Euros, the economics have gone against the scheme. Meantime the government report into how to better support Renewables won’t be published till next April.
Another example of the folly of assuming that markets can deliver the kind of energy infrastructure we will need in years to come.
It clearly requires some sort of central planning from independent engineers and economists who know what they are talking about, and not left to the whims and interests of the large energy players (who are off course all foreign owned in the main) and generalist (and influenceable by the unspoken thought of lucrative non-exec directorships in energy companies on retirement) civil servants. We could call the results of such planning an Energy Policy. The suggested mechanism to create such a Policy is here.
This also shows how daft it would be, to assume that we can get on building as many renewables as possible and worry about the European Super Grid later – since the Super grid will take at least a decade or two, you have to start planning and building it now, on the assumption that the renewables will come along later to populate it, since these typically only take around 3 years.
Where Does The Wind Come From – And How Much Is There?
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Brian Hurley - Wind Site Evaluation Ltd
Introduction: The source of the wind is the sun. The winds come from the suns energy falling on the earth’s surface. Due to the orientation of the earth’s surface to the sun’s rays near the equator the rays strike the surface at more optimum angles. The effect is that the air near the surface in tropical regions is heated more than the air near the surface of the polar regions. This leads to convection currents in the atmosphere, ie the movement of air due to changes in its density and pressure. This air movement is the principal cause of the winds.
Global Scale Circulation of the Atmosphere – A Simple Model of Global Circulation
We can gain an understanding of how global (or planetary) circulation works by developing two simplified graphical models of processes that produce this system. The first model will be founded on the following simplifying assumptions:
- The Earth is not rotating in space.
- The Earth’s surface is composed of similar materials.
- The global reception of solar insolation and outgoing longwave radiation cause a temperature gradient of hotter air at the equator and colder air at the poles.
Based on these assumptions, air circulation on the Earth should approximate the patterns shown on Read More→
