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Due to enormous subsidies paid by electricity consumers, Germany has become a leader in renewable energy technologies, most notably wind energy. Although alternative sources of energy might soon become close to cost-competitive with conventional energy sources, they can barely be considered a real alternative as long as the energy output is not reliable. The problem with wind and solar power is that the energy production goes down significantly on cloudy days with little or no wind. And since businesses and households depend on a constant and sufficient supply of electricity, most of the electricity we use comes from nuclear power stations and coal-fired power plants that generate electricity reliably 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

On the one hand, solar and wind energy help to free ourselves from our dependence on imported fossil fuels, but on the other hand, these sources of energy depend heavily on varying wind speed and sunshine.


In order to solve the problem of fluctuations in electricity supply from alternative sources of energy, scientists and engineers all around the world are developping new concepts to store energy. One of these concepts is to use the batteries of electric cars as temporary power storage devices. As demand for electricity is usually the lowest at night and the highest during the day, it would make a great deal of sense to recharge the batteries of EVs at night when electricity prices are lower and to use the energy on the day when commuting to work or if not needed, to  feed it back into the grid and sell it back to the utility.

Another possibility is to store excess energy in periods of strong winds and to feed it it into the grid in periods of low wind and high demand. Today, the German chancellor Angela Merkel laid the foundation stone for a new state-of-the-art hybrid power plant  - the world’s first - which will generate electricity as well as heat and hydrogen from wind power. The 21-million-euro project is due for completion in 2010. Once finished, the wind turbines should generate electricity to supply the region in Eastern Germany with electricity. When there’s excess electricity, it is used to produce hydrogen which is either sold as a fuel for fuel cell or hydrogen cars or  - together with biomass - burned to generate electricity and heat.

This hybrid power plant is likely to serve as a role model for numerous future wind parks in all parts of the world. To guarantee a cosntant supply of electricity despite varying winds and sunshine hours, this is a promising solution - amongst others - that can help to bring us a step closer to the new energy future.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/feedarticle/8466194

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 21st, 2009 at 4:23 PM and is filed under Energy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.