I would only consider it for old plants whose capacity couldn't be replaced fast enough by renewables. It makes no sens for new plants; renewables are cheaper.
I couldn't agree more, Joseph. From Beacon Power's site: "The core flywheel component of both Smart Energy Matrix™ systems will be a new, 4th-generation 25 kWh/100 kW model...", so I believe the energy is 1.25 MWh for the 5 MW power rating (or 24 EESUs, if they turn out not to be science fiction). ;)
The bulk of the power might have to come from thin film solar. One thing to keep in mind is that the price per watt of CIGS and related technologies is increasing at a rate faster than linear, whereas wind or solar thermal is not able to keep up. I think a Nanosolar type distributed generation has a great chance of success, and solar thermal has the best chance where energy storage is critical.
I'm all for the wind power. I'd like to see some analysis done on the effectiveness of using the saved natural gas for transportation to using the wind to charge batteries for transportation. Most charging would be done at night, which is when the wind speed is highest. Such an analysis would have to make projections for battery technology over the next 10 years.
Part of the problem is that the true cost of using non-renewable energy is not correctly factored into its price. If that were done, then RE energy investments would look much more attractive.
Already though in utility scale energy generation, solar thermal has shown itself to be cheaper than a natural gas plant. Solar PV is still expensive, but the price is coming down fast. Give it a few years; the technology is getting exponentially better.
A nice first step. The requested size (250 MW) is in the neighborhood of half the size of a coal plant. I'm looking forward to the day when enough of these newer generation solar thermal plants will be built to establish a reliability and cost record. Once these are known, the risk premium paid to finance these plants can be reduced and the cost of the energy they produced lowered.
It's nice to see large solar installations, though I can't help but think how much better the return on investment would be for solar thermal. This installation might make sense if it leads to PV installations on businesses and homes.
I'd like to see other groups (in addition to the Irish project) evaluate the vandium flow batteries or other storage solutions to make wind power less intermittent, since intermittency is one factor wind detractors use in making a case against wind.
Wow, judging by some of the comments here I have to wonder if some of us aren't on the oil industry payroll.
The question that needs to be asked is whether burning coal to go one mile creates more CO2 than burning gasoline to go one mile. The answer is no. Read Tesla's white paper:
With the new batteries coming out in the next few years and beyond, I doubt that '35 billion gallons' of ethanol production will ever be required. By 2017, the internal combustion engine will be quite obsolete. Biofuel will still be needed in special applications like turbine engines used in aviation.
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