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Storing Wind Power In Cold Stores
Posted by
kdawson
on Sat Feb 10, 2007 04:14 PM
from the timeshifting-the-wind dept.
from the timeshifting-the-wind dept.
Roland Piquepaille writes "According to Nature, a European-funded project has been launched to store electricity created from wind in refrigerated warehouses used to store food. As the production of wind energy is variable every day, it cannot easily be accommodated on the electrical grid. So the 'Night Wind' project wants to store wind energy produced at night in refrigerated warehouses and to release this energy during daytime peak hours. The first tests will be done in the Netherlands this year. And as the cold stores exist already, practically no extra cost should be incurred to store as much as 50,000 megawatt-hours of energy. Here are additional details and a picture illustrating this brilliant idea."
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Roland Piquepaille (Score:4, Insightful)
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Has anybody been able to do a rough calculation of how much he makes when his stories show up? Also, has anybody
April yet? (Score:4, Funny)
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Maybe you are joking, but this as nothing to do with refrigerating electricity. It's about utilizing wind power to refrigirate during the night to be able to stop refrigirating during the day. Why? Because during the night, wind power over produce so it would be wasted! This is a simple idea but that can make a difference.
It reminds me about nuclear powerplants coupled with hydroelectricity. Nuclear power gives a constant output, but cannot be stopped shortly. So when they are overproducing, they pump
Re:April yet? (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:April yet? (Score:5, Funny)
the power created by the vast vacuum between people that grasp sarcasm and you.
Note: the technical term for this controversial concept is zero-comphrension-of-the-point energy.
Parent
Holy Frozen Kippers (Score:5, Insightful)
This has nothing to do with storing power, it's simply a transfer of usage from on-peak to off-peak.
Wow.
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Re:Holy Frozen Kippers (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
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http://www.idahopower.com/energycenter/energyeffi
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Wow."
You are 100% correct. It is not storing power. It IS more effectively utilizing generated power. Maybe it's not a big "wow" to you, but to me it's a fantastic (not so) common sense solution to better utilizing limited resources. The more we can utilize our resources as efficiently as possible, the less we need to generate/use/procure.
actual stored wind energy project (Score:3, Informative)
Re:This doesn't matter with regard to wind power. (Score:5, Insightful)
The point is that the output of a wind generator is pretty erratic and unpredictable, and this limits the % of total electricity that this source can supply.
If you have a power input that can take an erratic and unpredictable electricity supply and still function effectively, then this increases the % of electricity that can be supplied by wind turbines.
Parent
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what they want to do. (Score:2)
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"night wind" (Score:5, Funny)
So do they release this "Night Wind" with a "Dutch Oven"?
This can be used in many places (Score:5, Insightful)
As far as I can figure what is being done is to cool down these refrigeration rooms more when there is more power beeing produced because of the strong wind and then you don't have to run the refrigeration systems when there is little wind for a time as they slowly heat until some level.
I would think that even more power could be saved if the energy was used to freeze water and the ice then was taken to melt in the a frame used as insulation for the freezing houses.
I don't see this as much of a new idea though, it is something that has been talked about a lot here in Denmark, there are many other places where the use of energy can be spared when there is lot's of production from windmills, for example local heating plants, smaller refrigerators in homes (would require some kind of online connection to tell them when there is cheap electricity, but I think these intelligent freezers already exist), electric cars, pretty much anything with an attached battery really.
This can to a large degree be controlled by letting the prices vary on the market and let the consumer feel these variances also, that way it pays of to use energy when there is plenty of it.
Using the power when it is produced sure is more efficient than using the extra energy to produce hydrogen, but still that is still something that I think should be still done. The two things doesn't oppose each other as such, if we are to bring down our CO2 release we sure need a lot of windmills.
Re:This can be used in many places (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sure a lot of industrial processes work on the principle that they need to generate x quantity of some particular good in a 24 hour period, but the capacity in the plant is such that they can maybe run at less than full output for some of the day, and catch up at other times. The refrigeration in this article is just one example of this sort of thing.
If the rates varied in realtime you could design your industrial process to automatically tailor its power consumpation to the going rate. As a result you can save megabucks on your utility bill, and the utility in turn can save even more bucks on now-unneeded coal-fired plants.
The same would apply in residential situations - people could have their air conditioners fluctuate their setpoint based on the price of electricity within some limit. If during a particular hour of the day power is cheaper than average go ahead and drop the temperature an extra degree or two, and then coast through times of price-spiking. Instead of brining plants online and offline utilities would just vary the price of electricity throughout the day. If the fluctuations in price are large enough homeowners would probably buy solar-based systems or energy-storage systems of some kind (bigger water heaters that don't run during the day, storage tanks to hold cold water for cooling during the day, etc.).
Basically all you need is an electric meter with online access to the power company, and a way for power-consuming devices to find out the current rate. For cheaper devices a simple timer would at least cover general on/off-peak times.
Anything that encourages energy-users to be conscious of the realities of electrical supply/demand fluctuation will only help the environment, the supply of fuel, the general economy, etc. With the current system a kWh is a kWh and consumers have no incentive to shift their usage off-peak.
Parent
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Re:This can be used in many places (Score:5, Informative)
Energy Australia charge [energy.com.au] 22c/kwh for Peak, 8c/kwh for Shoulder and 4c/kwh for Off-peak.
Not as elaborate as your suggestion, but far more suitable for the average home user. It would probably benefit such 'cold stores' too, because I wouldn't imagine it would make much difference whether they're -20 or -40, so they could cool right down during the night, then use less energy during 'peak' hours. I would guess future developments might see small sites charging batteries during the night to power appliances through the day.
Parent
Re:This can be used in many places (Score:4, Insightful)
But in this case the load-leveling is being done by end-users. They just happen to be cooperating with the power company.
How would user-feedback make the system more unstable? Do you think that some users would set up their processes to INCREASE consumption when the price RISES? Users would either ignore the realtime rate, or they'd use it in a way that furthers the grid's goals - reducing usage when capacity is low, and raising it when capacity is high.
Right now utilities already do this in the form of on/off-peak metering. Generally only large industrial consumers are eligible (this varies greatly by country/region/etc). This is useful to save on gas-fired turbines and such, but as you point out wind is far less predictable - it might be more available at 1PM and less available at 1AM. To handle a grid with a lot of wind capacity you'd need realtime rates, and users who base their consumption on the realtime rates.
Regardless of the scheme you pick you need to make sure customers have incentive to cooperate. If you just tell them they're doing it for the common good they'll realize that they're going through a lot of trouble and possibly undertaking costs just to line utility executive pockets. If on the other hand you vary the rates in realtime, or give them breaks on their bills for participating they'll go along with it. Too often environmental initiatives are not reward-based, and as a result everybody pays them lip-service but silently undermines them. In most industries the greening-up of processes has not been the result of any desire to help out the environment, but rather large efficiency gains associated with recycling waste streams and reducing waste in general.
Parent
Why would he want to kill her in public? (Score:4, Insightful)
No, no, no.... There's no wind in these refrigerated warehouses. The point is that wind power fluctuates, so to smooth things out, this guy wants to use the electricity generated from wind power to overcool refrigerated warehouses at night, and then undercool them during the day when electricity demand peaks to make more of the electricity generated during the day available for other purposes.
mas o menos (Score:2)
This may also cause problems when you consider the food doesn't just sit there; it MOVES. Take it out to ship it to a market, and you've "lost" that cold. Move new food in and it'll absorb calories from everything around it
Potential Energy of Water (Score:2)
It would likely be expensive to set up, and dependant upon the geography of an area, but the basic idea would be this: use windmills to pump water up to a basin on higher ground. Then, generate hydroelectric power at the rate desired (at night, during windless times, etc.), by letting the water fall back down to lower gro
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
I've always wondered about using the potential energy of water (that is, raising it to a higher height), to store that energy to smooth out production versus demand issues for electricity.
Does anyone know if this is being done? It seems like it would be more straight forward than the refrigeration method mentioend in the article.
Have you considered Reading TFA? (Yeah, I must be new here):
Pumped storage hydro is common world wide. (Score:2, Funny)
It really does a number on the fish though.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castaic_Dam [wikipedia.org]
http://www.osti.gov/energycitations/product.bibli
alt fuels and systems (Score:4, Insightful)
500,000 years+ worth of stored energy in oil has been used in 200 years, and will be gone in another 200. Bummer. We found it, and used it. We have 6 billion people now (and growing fast) who want energy -- lots and lots of it.
All the alternative-fuels scenarios - even in the very best case where we grow vast oceans and fields of seaweed and switchgrass and use yeasts to process cellulosic 5-carbon sugars and make ethanol -- even in these best case scenarios (which incidentally would close the carbon loop), humans are still 1-2 orders of magnitude lower in energy production compared to the current oil-fueled system. If we add to that calculation efficiency measures we get closer, lower population - closer still, conservation - still closer... but: the harsh inescapable reality humanity faces in the next 30-50 years is this: there will just not be enough energy for the growing (first-world) population.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellulosic_ethanol [wikipedia.org]
http://bioconversion.blogspot.com/2006/08/celunol
We need to perfect nuclear power engineering, software, and extremely long term storage processes as soon as possible.
Re:alt fuels and systems (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Oookaaay (Score:2, Insightful)
Article and post misleading (Score:5, Insightful)
This wouldn't be restricted to just wind power like the article says. It would also be very useful for many other power sources.
One other method I heard about many years ago was to use the extra energy at night to pump water to a high elevation resavoir and during the day use that water to help generate electricity.
Well, an old idea in new disguise ;-) (Score:4, Informative)
This is done for decades now in the european grid. I had the opportunity in the late sixties to visit such a power plant at Schruns/Tschagguns in Vorarlberg in Western Austria.
It's a very impressive installation with a entire delivery height of more than 2000m (6000ft) in two stages. In the exhibition is also an impressive display of the entire european powergrid.
CU
Fuzzy handwaving (Score:2)
Cold Sores (Score:2)
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Yes, and I was going to write a post about it with a gratuitous reference to the possible usage of Open (Cold) Sores Software, but you beat me to it.
Pumped Storage and Compressed Air Storage (Score:3, Insightful)
Other grid energy storage [wikipedia.org]
Pumped storage [wikipedia.org] could be adapted to wind.
Compressed air storage [pennnet.com] is another idea. The gas turbine generators have clutches in the compressor section and stored compressed air that is compressed in off-peak hours is used rather than the turbine powered compressor. The existing systems use the gas turbines in off-peak hours to compress air, but I would think that using wind powered compressors in a compressed air storage gas turbine plant would be a simple retrofit.
Is this really novel? (Score:2)
Peak electricity demand probably has little relationship to the tiny percent of wind energy injected into the grid - when wind energy is more, the coal/oil/nuke generators just have to use slightly less fuel than they would otherwise, regardless of the demand.
Roland the Plogger, wrong as usual. Real facts: (Score:5, Informative)
It's Roland the Plogger, wrong as usual, spamming to promote his blog. The Slashdot editors gave him two links this time, one without a "nofollow". Ka-ching!
OK, now the real info. Thermal energy storage has been around for years. There are thousands of installations. It's used when there's a big difference between day and night power rates. During the night, water is chilled, or ice frozen; during the day, the cold water is used for air conditioning. See Thermal Energy Storage Strategies for Commercial HVAC Systems [pge.com] for details on how to configure such a system. Also see CALMAC [calmac.com], which makes such gear. It was a spinoff from their ice-rink equipment business.
Cold Confusion (Score:2)
How is this "ingenious"? Even "cool" would be just a lame pun.
How many Can do this? (Score:5, Informative)
I work in the IT section for the biggest refrigeration company in the Netherlands, and from what I've seen every type of food has an specific storage temperature. Apparently a 2 degrees Celcius difference will make a big difference in the quality of food.
Expert reaction (Score:4, Interesting)
There is a special communication protocol used to communicate between these electricity company's
It is called EDINE and is based on EDIEL which is again based on EDIFACT
One of these messages QUOTE-RRV is specifically used to trade over and under production.
But is also used to trade possibility to not consume for a certain time.
Which effectively lowers the demand for a period of scarcity
This is used a lot in aluminum factory's that can effectively shut down for a day when there is a problem in a power plant
Of course if the same can be done for cold stores that is great.
Most of those company's are very wanted by electricity company's and they normally have very lucrative contracts
almost getting there electricity for free.
Hydrogen plants would be also very good candidates
Greets John
Mostly ludicrous (Score:3, Insightful)
First of all, if you cool off the fridges, the increased temperature difference between inside and outside the fridge increases the rate of heat loss.
Next the larger the termperature difference, the greater the load on the compressors and the lower the overall efficiency. Although it helps a bit if it's cooler outside at night. But they're already capable of taking advantage of this without any "Night Wind" project babble.
The larger warehouses have more activity at night-- therfore more heat losses. The least best time for having a lower temperature.
A better approch would be to give somewhat lower rates for night electricity usage. Many industries use a *lot* of electricity and could save big bucks by shifting to nighttime work. There's one big steel-mill in town here that uses about 30% of all the electricity-- they'd love to get a few percent off their $13 million per month electric bill by using their electric arc furnaces at night.
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Afterall, you are posting in one of his articles.
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Re:Stupid idea (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
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The argumentation goes as such: imagine clean power from windmills. Then imagine an electrolysis machine to produce hydrogen. then imagine a huge compressor, required to liquefy the hydrogen gas. then imagine storage tanks, which will slowly leak hydrogen. These tanks have to be regularly replaced because hydrogen tends to mess up the metal