News

Green House Gas Reductions through Energy Storage

October 23, 2014 by Jeff Shepard

Power electronics and energy storage start-up Alevo, Inc. has developed, in cooperation with a major electronics system integrator, a large-scale power converter with 6 ms reaction time designed for use in ramp control, peak shaving, renewables integration and spinning reserves for electric utilities. The company has also developed a new battery technology that supports very-fast charge and discharge rates with a constant low internal resistance over an extremely long usable lifetime. In addition, the battery is inherently safe and uses a nonflammable inorganic electrolyte.

Details of the technology and an initial large-scale production capability will be revealed next week. “The company has combined a major breakthrough in grid-scale battery technology with advanced data analytics to eliminate the 30% waste that exists in current electric grid delivery systems. The reduction in grid waste has huge environmental as well as economic benefits,” stated a spokesperson for Alevo.

In a proof of concept, Alevo simulated the Western Electricity Coordinating Council system in the U.S. The simulation compared the system as it is run today to a solution featuring mass-deployed energy storage co-located with coal-fired generating plants. The simulated case included 18GW of storage to offset ramping, peak capacity and reserve requirements.

The result was the replacement of over 8.2GW of old coal-fired plants with storage and a significant improvement in the operating efficiencies of the remaining generators. Overall system emissions were reduced between 3.75% and 7% in the simulated case, and the cost of the generated electricity was reduced by a similar or greater amount. Alevo will be making several major announcements about the continued development deployment of these capabilities the week of 27 October.