Application for Utilities
To minimize greenhouse gas effects it is essential that the technology to produce electrical energy with reduced CO2 and other emissions is developed as rapidly as possible. The use of energy storage systems is one way of achieving a reduction in CO2 emissions but they also have many other equally important advantages.
Some of the more important uses of energy storage systems are:
- Maximize the output of a wind farm by absorbing any fluctuations in the wind energy produced to deliver smooth power to consumers. This reduces the output required from conventional power stations which directly reduces CO2 emissions
- Act as a reserve power supplies to keep an AC supply grid at rated power and frequency when a conventional large power stations develops a faults and suddenly trips. The existing technology is to keep several conventional power stations connected to the AC grid running at a low output level which wastes energy. An energy storage system avoids this wasted energy
- For cruise ships, have a sufficient energy supply to keep the essential services operating so that the minimum number of prime movers can be operating at any given time
- A small power supply can charge up an energy storage system to then enable a larger pulse of power to be released. This is used in the Converteam’s linear motor plane launch system
- They can keep industrial processes operating for a given time to avoid production disturbances caused by sudden transients in the power delivered by a national AC grid.
There are two key components of an energy storage system:
- High power converters to transfer electrical energy efficiently between the AC grid and the energy storage system. Converteam has a standard range of high power converters available for use in energy storage systems
- An efficient way to store and recover the electrical energy. There are several systems available including super-capacitors, advanced batteries, flywheels and flow cells. Converteam is able to supply all types of energy storage systems so that the optimal type can be selected for a given application. For energy storage systems with a high storage value the optimum choice is normally flow cells.