Translate

Tuesday, July 2, 2013

Rhode Island Beacon Power, National Grid Agree To Study Flywheel Potential

Beacon Power, National Grid Agree To Study Flywheel Potential

SustainableBusiness.com News
Beacon Power Corporation (Nasdaq: BCON), a company that designs flywheel energy storage systems, has signed a two-year agreement with the energy utility company National Grid (NYSE: NGG).
Under the agreement, the companies will share technical, performance and economic data associated with Beacon'sflywheel energy storage systems and their potential operational value to National Grid's electricity transmission networks. Objectives of the agreement include National Grid's evaluation of Beacon's flywheel energy storage systems not only for fast-response frequency regulation, but also for wind-related ramp mitigation--another potential large-scale grid stability application.
"The positive attributes of flywheel energy storage--especially its high efficiency, zero carbon emissions, and extremely fast response--make it a technology of significant interest and one we are keen to investigate," Stan Blazewicz, Vice President, Global Head of Technology for National Grid, said.
Beacon Power and National Grid will focus on the sharing of technical information and performance results for Beacon's Smart Energy Matrix, the energy storage-based regulation resource that Beacon is now operating under ISO New England's Alternative Technologies Program.
"National Grid is one of the largest investor-owned utility companies in the world, with an extensive footprint in the United Kingdom as well as the northeastern U.S.," said Bill Capp, Beacon Power president and CEO. "Prior to this agreement, we collaborated closely with National Grid in 2006 and 2007 on our demonstration system in Amsterdam, New York, as well as more recently on three interconnection projects in Massachusetts and New York."
Ramp mitigation refers to the ability of regulation and reserve generation units to quickly compensate for a rapid system-wide change in aggregate power output caused by sudden changes in power production. As an intermittent resource, wind power generation often experiences rapid fluctuations in power output. As the amount of wind generation on the grid increases, many grid operators foresee the need to increase total regional ramping capacity to maintain proper energy balance.
Under terms of the agreement, Beacon will work with National Grid to forecast future increases in the demand for regulation capacity resulting from greater deployment of wind power. National Grid will also work with Beacon Power to define an optimal control algorithm for Beacon's fast-response energy storage technology that would maximize regulation benefits on the grid.
In the U.S., National Grid delivers electricity to approximately 3.3 million customers in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York and Rhode Island, and manages the electricity network on Long Island under an agreement with the Long Island Power Authority (LIPA). National Grid also owns over 4,000 megawatts of contracted electricity generation that provides power to over one million LIPA customers.
National Grid owns the high-voltage electricity transmission network in England and Wales and operates the system across Great Britain. It also owns and operates the high pressure gas transmission system in Britain and its distribution business delivers gas to 11 million homes and businesses.
Beacon Power Corporation's primary business strategy is to commercialize its patented flywheel energy storage technology to perform frequency regulation services on the grid. Beacon's Smart Energy Matrix, which is now in production, is a megawatt-level, utility-grade flywheel-based solution to provide sustainable frequency regulation services.
Posted by at No comments:

Rhode Island Curious to learn how high-efficiency equipment

Curious to learn how high-efficiency equipment 
works and how much money it can save you? 2013
Follow these steps to participate
1.Purchase and install qualifying equipment in a Rhode Island home with an active, paid-to-date National Grid residential gas heating account. Qualifying equipment must be installed between January 1, 2013 and December 31, 2013.
2.Complete this application, with the help of your contractor. Remember to sign the bottom of the application.
3.The following documents are required along with your completed rebate form:
A copy of your most recent National Grid gas bill
A copy of your most recent electric bill — required for furnaces and electronically commutated motor (ECM) boiler pumps only
A clear, legible copy of your itemized receipt or invoice from your contractor that indicates “zero balance” or “paid in full” and shows: 
- Your contractor’s name and address
- The purchase and/or installation date
- Equipment installed
- Manufacturer
- Model number
- Installation costs
- Annual Fuel Utilization Efficiency (AFUE) 
for boilers and furnaces
- Thermal Efficiency or Energy Factor for 
water heaters
- Quantity of thermostats installed (if 
applicable)
4. IMPORTANT: Make a copy of the rebate form and supporting documents for your records!
5. Mail to: National Grid High-Efficiency Residential Equipment Rebate (RI)
Offer# H245494
PO Box 130013
El Paso, TX 88513-0013
Rebate form and required documentation must be postmarked within 60 days of equipment installation date, by 
January 31, 2014 at the latest. 
You will receive a rebate check in the mail 6 to 8 weeks after our receipt of the properly completed and signed rebate form and supporting documentation. 
Questions? Please call 1-800-292-2032 or e-mail ngridinfo@smartenergyzone.com. 
You may track the status of your rebate after submission by visiting www.smartenergyzone.com/nationalgridri
Program Details
A licensed contractor MUST install furnaces, boilers, water heaters, boiler controls, heat recovery ventilators and electronically commutated motor pumps. Thermostats may be self-installed by the customer or contractor-installed.
Tip: If you’re looking for a contractor, please consult the Better Business Bureau’s list of accredited heating contractors. Visit 
www.rhodeisland.bbb.org and click on “Find a BBB Accredited Business.” Type in “Heating Contractor” and enter your city and state or zip code. If you do not have online access, you may opt to call the Better Business Bureau at 1-508-652-4800 (Monday through 
Friday 9:00 a.m. - 3:00 p.m.) or consult your local yellow pages.
Interested in applying for 0% Financing to help you afford these upgrades?
Through National Grid’s EnergyWise program, you may be able to take advantage of 0% Financing to pay for a high-efficiency natural gas furnace, boiler, and/or water heater over a period of two to seven years. That’s interest-free financing!
The first step is to call 1-888-633-7947 or visit www.myngrid.com/energywise to schedule a free EnergyWise in-home energy assessment.


To be eligible to apply for 0% Financing, customer must be an owner of a one to four family residence with a current, paid-to-date National Grid Rhode Island residential gas heating account. Customer must complete a free in-home energy assessment. 0% Financing is contingent on being approved for a loan from a participating lender. Financing is subject to funding availability. Terms and Conditions are subject to change or cancellation without notice. Limited time offer. This program will end on December 31, 2013 more...https://www1.nationalgridus.com/Files/AddedPdf/POA/2013_RI_HEHE.pdf
Posted by at No comments:

Rhode Island QUICK FACTS

QUICK FACTS

  • Rhode Island had the lowest per capita total energy consumption, the third-lowest per capita petroleum consumption, and the tenth-lowest per capita natural gas consumption among the States as of 2010.
  • Rhode Island’s Port of Providence is one of two deep-water ports in New England and a key regional transportation and heating fuel products hub.
  • Electric companies in Rhode Island have committed to reduce peak demand by up to nine percent upon the New England grid operator’s request.
  • In 2011, virtually all of Rhode Island’s net electricity generation came from independent power producers.
  • Natural gas fueled nearly all of Rhode Island’s net electricity generation in 2011.
Last updated in July 2012. http://www.eia.gov/state/?sid=ri
Posted by at No comments:

Vermont Ways to Save & Rebates

Ways to Save & Rebates

Appliances

Today, all major appliance makers offer energy-efficient models that help you use less energy, save water and reduce your utility bills. This means homeowners can invest in appliances that look as good as they perform.

Clothes Washers

Look for the blue ENERGY STAR label when you shop for a new clothes washer and don’t forget to get $50 back from Efficiency Vermont on your purchase of a select ENERGY STAR qualified clothes washer.

Dehumidifiers

The ENERGY STAR residential dehumidifiers eligible for a rebate from Efficiency Vermont remove the same amount of moisture as similarly sized standard units, but use at least 1-20% less energy.

Refrigerators

If you have an older refrigerator, it’s likely that it uses more electricity than any other appliance in your home.

Room Air Conditioners

ENERGY STAR qualified room air conditioners: use 10-20% less energy than conventional models, reducing energy bills and helping our environment.

Dishwashers

ENERGY STAR Dishwashers can save you up to $100 per year on your electric bill. Check the yellow EnergyGuide label to compare the energy use of similar models and estimate annual operating costs.

New Home Programs

You can save money on utility bills, provide a more comfortable living environment with better indoor air quality, and help protect the environment by building an ENERGY STAR home.

Vermont ENERGY STAR Homes

An easy way to make sure a new home is energy efficient is to look for an ENERGY STAR certified home.

Energy Code Plus

Ask your new home builder to participate in Efficiency Vermont’s Energy Code Plus service to ensure compliance with Vermont Residential Building Energy Standards.

Home Electronics

Home electronics products, such as televisions, and computers and monitors, can account for about 15% of household electricity use. ENERGY STAR qualified electronic products offer the same features and technologies as non-qualified products, but they use less energy, saving you money on your electric bill.

Advanced Power Strips

When your electronics are off, they may still use power. And you pay for it. An Advanced Power Strip (APS) shuts off the power for you.

Computers & Monitors

An ENERGY STAR labeled laptop or desktop computer uses as much as 65% less electricity than computers without the ENERGY STAR label.

Televisions

Many of the most popular brands of TVs make ENERGY STAR qualified models that have all the latest features and technologies that you are looking for, but they use less energy, and save you money on your electric bill.

Meter Loan

Efficiency Vermont offers Watts Up meters free of charge for a period of three weeks to Vermont electric utility ratepayers. You can measure how much electricity your appliances use with the meter and with this information, you'll be better able to identify the connection between your appliance use and the amount of your electric bills.

Swimming Pools

Enjoy your summer relaxing by your pool while you save energy and money on your electric bill. Learn more about a $200 rebate on efficient pool pump purchase and installation.

Lighting

Lighting accounts for about 20% of annual household electricity bills, or approximately $200 per year on average. Start saving today with energy-efficient lighting choices like CFLs and LEDs for your home.

Compact Fluorescent Light Bulbs (CFLs)

CFLs can be used almost anywhere in your home and use 66-75% less energy than incandescent bulbs.

Light Emitting Diode (LEDs)

In partnership with Efficiency Vermont, some Vermont lighting retailers offer specially priced LEDs or an instant coupon good for $10 off the regular price of eligible residential LED downlight products.

Vermont's Weatherization Program

Efficiency Vermont partners with local Community Action Agencies to provide funding for electrical energy saving measures in homes participating in weatherization services.

Audits, Heating & Insulation

Hiring a professional Home Performance with ENERGY STAR® contractor for your home energy improvement project ensures real energy savings and safe results. It also means you’ll qualify for applicable incentives from Efficiency Vermont.

Energy Audits

A home energy audit is often the first step in making your home more efficient. An audit can help you assess how much energy your home uses and evaluate what steps you can take to improve the energy efficiency of your home.

Heating & Cooling

Heating accounts for about half of a Vermont home's energy needs. A well-sealed and insulated home can keep you warmer in the winter and cooler in the summer.

Insulation & Air Sealing

Sealing and insulating your home is often the most cost effective way to improve energy efficiency and comfort in your home.


Posted by at No comments:

Vermont-based Dynapower commissions over 50 megawatts of energy storage inverters

Vermont-based Dynapower commissions over 50 megawatts of energy storage inverters

Mon Jan 21 2013
Dynapower Company LLC, a Vermont-based leading supplier of power conversion systems, commissioned over 50 megawatts (MW) of grid tied bi-directional energy storage inverters in December 2012. The inverters are the lynchpin of energy storage systems that connect to the electric grid via a variety of storage mediums, including lithium ion and lead acid batteries.
“Our bi-directional inverters delivered from our Energy Management Systems group, are being used by utilities and integrators in a variety of applications including renewable energy, frequency regulation and VAR support for grid stability,” said Adam Knudsen, Dynapower Company President. “December’s commissioning covered multiple projects including a single installation rated for continuous duty of 36 MW with an overload rating of more than 45 MW.”
Dynapower is recognizable by, among other things, its wind turbines just off I-89. It installed one of the first wind mills in the region.
These projects will demonstrate how energy storage and power management technologies can help grid-scale wind and solar PV power systems address intermittency issues by utilizing an energy storage and power management system that optimizes the delivery of energy, in addition to providing regulation service to the utility market.
The inverters commissioned in December include Dynapower’s Compact Power System™ [CPS] family of 600 VAC class inverters and the Dynapower PowerSkid™ product which offer customers an integrated package of power electronics, switch gear, metering, and transformer to a direct medium voltage interconnection. To further demonstrate the capabilities of energy storage systems Dynapower has installed a 1.8 MW PowerSkid™ system at its facility. The system will be comprised of four different storage technologies used to integrate an onsite 100 kW wind turbine, 101 kW roof-mounted solar array and more than 2 MW-hours of energy storage. The system is expected to come online March 2013 and will be the first of its kind combining a variety of battery technologies into a common system.
Dynapower is the market leader in Grid Tied Power Electronics for Energy Storage applications providing more than 50% of the installed power in the US market. In 2013 Dynapower will continue to add to its international installed base of energy storage inverters servicing a variety of customers from utilities to renewable energy integrators and private commercial customers.
Suorce: Dynapower Company 1.21.2013
Dynapower Company is the world’s largest independent manufacturer of standard and custom power conversion equipment. All Dynapower products are designed and manufactured in a 150,000 square foot vertically integrated facility in South Burlington, VT. Dynapower manufactures complete power systems, including high power rectifiers and bi-directional inverters, for use in industrial, military, smart grid, and research applications. Dynapower’s products serve a variety of industries including energy storage, metal finishing, water treatment, electrochemical, military and mining. For more information on our products and services, please visit www.dynapower.com. 


Posted by at No comments:

Vermont Residential Case Studies

Articles published about our Residential Audits


See us featured in ...

Efficiency Vermont Residential Case Studies

Case Studies


Posted by at No comments:

New Jersey State May Start Funding Energy-Storage Projects for Solar and Wind

State May Start Funding Energy-Storage Projects for Solar and Wind

Proposal comes at a time when New Jersey is slashing funds for most sources of renewable energy
 print |  | 
By Tom Johnson, April 10, 2013 in Energy & Environment |8 Comments
For the first time, New Jersey’s clean energy program is proposing that it hand out money to energy-storage projects, which are viewed by many experts as a crucial element in helping technologies like solar and wind become more successful.
Related Links
In a straw proposal developed in the Office of Clean Energy at the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities, the staff is suggesting that the state allocate between $5 million and $10 million over the next four years for energy storage. The proposal says it may award up to $2.5 million in state fiscal year 2014. Over four years, the total could rise to $10 million.
Because the sun doesn’t always shine and the wind doesn't always blow, energy storage is viewed as key to promoting cleaner ways of producing electricity.
Energy storage is still under development. Given the intermittent nature of solar and wind, it is viewed as crucial to making clean energy competitive with conventional technologies like natural gas and coal-fired plants.
The proposal comes at a time when the state is slashing funding for renewable energy, proposing just $7.5 million in the 2014 budget to finance solar, biomass, onshore wind, and water energy.
Nevertheless, the state has aggressive goals to have 22.5 percent of its electricity produced from renewable energy sources by 2020, a target many environmental groups think should be more ambitious.
New Jersey has been a leader in promoting the development of solar installations, ranking only behind California and Arizona in the number of systems it has installed.
The state is also aggressively trying to promote the development of offshore wind, establishing a goal of 1,100 megawatts by 2020. Both goals would be bolstered by the creation of effective energy storage facilities that would make their systems more reliable in providing electricity to the power grid.
The state’s efforts to promote energy storage mirror those goals, although some energy companies question how far the technology has advanced.
The proposal also comes at a time when the state’s clean energy program has suffered from repeated diversion of funds, which have been used to balanced the budget in recent years. Since Gov. Chris Christie has taken office. he and the Legislature have diverted more than $600 million in clean energy funds. Another $150 million is targeted for appropriation in the latest budget proposed by the administration.
More in Energy & Environment »


Posted by at No comments:

New Jersey Home Energy Analysis

Home Energy Analysis

New Jersey's Clean Energy Program and your local natural gas or electric utility company want to ensure that you are getting all of the information you need to make your home more energy-efficient, comfortable, and affordable. 
Your local electric or natural gas utility company may offer its own online energy analysis. We encourage you to use your local utility's online home energy analysis because the information can provide a more accurate account of your energy usage and in some cases may even be linked to your utility account so it can help you compare and analyze your bills, track how much energy your home uses and find ways to save energy and money.  If you have any questions about the above home energy analysis tools, please contact your electric or natural gas provider.
The following utility companies offer their own online home energy analysis tools:
New Jersey Natural GasNUI Elizabethtown GasJCPLPSEGConectivSouth Jersey Gas 
Save on energy bills with:
  • Specific recommendations based on the age of your home, the types of appliances you have, and other criteria.
  • New Jersey's Clean Energy Program offers attractive incentives that help making your energy-efficient upgrades more affordable.  You end up saving energy and money in the long run.
In the event you are not served by one of these utilities, New Jersey's Clean Energy Programcurrently promotes the use of the Home Energy Saver, which is sponsored by the Department of Energy and the Environmental Protection Agency. 
Posted by at No comments:

New Jersey To Boost Funding For Energy Storage

New Jersey Wants To Boost Funding For Energy Storage Technology — Here Are Some Options

By Jeff Spross on Apr 17, 2013 at 11:00 am

Wind turbines outside of Atlantic City, NJ. (Photo: Donna Connor/AP)
The recent bad news out of the state of New Jersey is that it’s proposed slashing its renewable energy budget to a mere $7.5 million in 2014. The good news is that this loss will be at least somewhat offset by a proposal to bulk up funding for energy storage specifically.
One of the key difficulties with renewable energy is that it often relies on an intermittent source of power — solar panels require sunshine, turbines require the wind to be blowing, etc. The result is often a mismatch between when demand for electricity is high and when electricity from renewables is available. (Power plants that rely on fossil fuel, by contrast, can be ramped up or down in response to demand.) But improved storage technology could go a long way towards solving this problem, since excess power generated when the sun is shining or the wind is blowing could be built up, and then provided during other times when needed.
So while New Jersey may be backing off funding for further development of renewables, the storage funding may allow it to get significantly more power out of the wind and solar installations it already has:
In a straw proposal developed in the Office of Clean Energy at the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities, the staff is suggesting that the state allocate between $5 million and $10 million over the next four years for energy storage. The proposal says it may award up to $2.5 million in state fiscal year 2014. Over four years, the total could rise to $10 million.
Power storage of course largely means batteries, but the technology is still trying to catch up with the growing needs of the grid, expanded use of renewables, and electric cars. But if New Jersey wants to help push the technology along, there are a few areas the state could choose from.
Lithium-ion batteries are the obvious go-to choice, and they’re already widely used in small consumer electronics. But at larger scales they’re prone to shorts and overheating — as Boeing found out when their new Dreamliner fleet had to be grounded after the lithium batteries on board two separate planes caught fire. But there’s a new technological approachbeing developed at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee that promises to overcome these safety issues, while making the batteries lighter and far more efficient in the process. It’s still embryonic though, so it could sue a boost.
Alternatively, Bill Gates and other investors recently announced they’ll be plowing $35 million into a new battery systemby Aquion that relies solely on cheap and non-toxic materials like carbon, sodium, manganese, and good old fashioned salt water. The batteries are modular and thus can be grouped as a stack, making them applicable to large and small-scale projects, and they can even withstand a wide range of temperature extremes. Aquion is hoping to have production up and running at a manufacturing plant in Pennsylvania by the end of this year.
And if New Jersey wants to get really ambitious, they could take a cue from Belgium’s plan to build an artificial island to store power from wind farms. Excess power generated by the turbines would be used to pump water 15 meters up to a reservoir on the island, and then when electricity demand was up but wind was down, the water would flow back out for hydroelectric generation.

Tags:


Posted by at No comments:
Subscribe to: Comments (Atom)