Synergy Module

Toyota have announced that they are road testing a plug-in version of the Prius.

http://www.japancorp.net/Article.Asp?Art_ID=14929

This is the off peak electrical load we need to get EDM on the road (literally) in Ireland. According to the published specification, the secondary battery can store about 2.6kWh of energy. If we had 10,000 of these cars in Ireland they would consume 26MWh of off peak wind generated electricity per day. The grid stabilistion effect of this managed load would be a very positive factor in increasing wind energy penetration in Ireland.

This blog is about how EDM can help the penetration of renewable energy sources into the electricity grid in Ireland. Another facilitator of renewable energy penetration is energy storage. For example, currently, there is significant interest in pumped hydro storage in Ireland. I have added the URL of the Electricity Storage Association http://electricitystorage.org/ to the blogroll of this site. This URL lists the many options for electricity storage and draws comparisons between them.

It would seem from the analysis that compressed air energy storage (CAES) is an option that might also deserve investigation in the Irish context. This technology uses underground mines or natural caverns to store large volumes of compressed air. During times of surplus electrical energy, air is pumped into the cavern. When electricity is required, the compressed air is used to improve the efficiency of a gas fired turbine.

Off the south coast of Cork in Ireland is the Kinsale gas field which is operated by Marathon. For full details read the following PDF.

http://www.cer.ie/cer04108.pdf

The Kinsale field is now nearly spent and is being used as a natural gas storage facility. The Seven Heads gas field which extends further into the Atlantic uses the pipline and infrastructure of the Kinsale field to land the gas on shore. I began to wonder could the Kinsale gas field infrastructure be used to implement a CAES system. I decided to send the following email to Marathon’s press officers.

_________________________________________

Dear Linda, Robert,

I would appreciate it if you could supply an answer to a technical question, please.

Question Background:  Ireland has a major problem with wind energy penetration due to the variable supply nature of wind generated electricity. Energy demand management (EDM) or energy storage, preferably both, are required to solve the problem. As I understand it, Ireland has 2GW of planning permissions for wind turbines for which grid connections are not possible for reasons of grid instability. I am interested in EDM and energy storage. While researching the technologies behind energy storage I grew a particular interest in the viability of compressed air energy storage (CAES). This form of energy storage is used in conjunction with natural gas to increase turbine efficiency. What is required is a large sealed natural cavern that can be used to store compressed air.

Question: I understand that the Marathon south west gas field, in Ireland, is now being used for gas storage. Could it be used for compressed air storage to help solve Ireland’s wind energy penetration problem?

____________________________________

I look forward to publishing their reply.

19th August 2007

I havn’t heard back from Marathon. I’ll try more local contacts and I will publish whatever reply I get. I think that natural gas wells may not be suitable for CAES because mixing air and natural gas makes an explosive mixture.

In the meantime I found the following two references to the two oldest CAES projects in existance.

Huntorf, Germany

McIntosh, USA

In my last blog I gave an outline of how I am putting the infrastructure into my home to turn it into an off peak synergy module laboratory. I am also developing a test site for embedded generation synergy module (EGSM) concepts. To get full details on the overall project please visit www.cix.ie.

The normal electrical load at the CIX data centre will be around 550kW. I am planning to put a 1.1MW multi-fuel grid synchronised generator into the CIX data centre. That generator will be controlled by an EGSM and will in effect turn the data centre into a grid stabilisation device capable of either sourcing or sinking approximately 550kW.

CIX will have a 10kV grid connect and a UPS system that will enable it to ride through any power variations that will occur moving from site power consumption to site power generation.

By running the generator on bio-diesel or PPO it is possible to make CIX a carbon neutral data centre. By using the embedded generation capacity in the data centre, CIX will be facilitating the penetartion of wind energy into the Irish electrical grid by improving grid stability.