Friday, December 14, 2012


Wind, solar, storage could power grid 99.9% by 2030: report


Imagine, if you will, clean, renewable energy almost fully powering a full-scale electricity grid.Ok, it’s hard to believe now, but with recent advances in wind and solar power, it may not be that far off.CleanTechnica
And, it may come within the next two decades, if researchers from the University of Delaware (UD) and Delaware Technical College (DTCC) have their way.
A new report from the two institutions suggest that, by 2030, renewable energy could power a large electrical grid a stunning 99.9%, and at close to today’s energy costs!
Analysts at UD and DTCC suggest a well-developed mixture of solar, wind, fuel cells, and battery storage would produce greater supply than electricity demand, plus keep energy costs low.
“These results break the conventional wisdom that renewable energy is too unreliable and expensive,” said co-author, professor in the School of Marine Science and Policy in UD’s College of Earth, Ocean, and Environment Willett Kempton in the phys.org article.
“The key is to get the right combination of electricity sources and storage—which we did by an exhaustive search—and to calculate costs correctly,” he said.
Researchers used a model with 28 billion combinations of storage schemes, and renewable energy sources. Each combination was tested over historical hourly weather data and electricity use over a four-year span. Analysts used data for the model from PJM Interconnection, representing one-fifth of the US electricity grid, which spans 13 states, ranging from the Midwest (Illinois) to the East Coast (New Jersey).
This report was a bit different than others in that it looked at cutting energy costs as much as possible, rather than simply focusing on matching energy generation to energy generation use.

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