Michele Kearney's Nuclear Wire

Major Energy and Environmental News and Commentary affecting the Nuclear Industry.

Wednesday, May 7, 2014

HECO seeking energy storage for renewable integration


By Barbara Vergetis Lundin Comment | Forward | Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn

Hawaiian Electric Industries subsidiary Hawaiian Electric Company (HECO) is seeking proposals for large-scale energy storage systems to help add more renewable generation to the Oahu grid. Energy storage is one of the key elements missing from HECO achieving their goal of integrating high levels of variable renewable energy sources like solar and wind.
Aerial of Oahu. Credit: Earth Sciences and Image Analysis, NASA-Johnson Space Center
With Oahu's continuing growth of utility-scale wind and solar projects and rooftop solar now in use by more than 11 percent of Hawaiian Electric customers, energy storage is needed to help with sudden changes in availability of these variable resources. HECO is looking for one or more storage systems that are able to store 60 to 200 MW for up to 30 minutes.
When power supplied by renewable resources suddenly drop, energy storage systems can help maintain reliable service and avoid customer outages as fast-starting firm generation units are brought online. Energy storage can provide not only electricity but also so-called "auxiliary services," such as sub-second frequency response (near-instantaneous changes to keep power quality at 60-hertz) and minute-to-minute load following (power output adjustments as demand for electricity fluctuates throughout the day), to operate the grid.
Selected projects costing $2.5 million will need to go through the Hawaii Public Utilities Commission (PUC). HECO hopes to complete and file energy storage agreements with the PUC by the end of 2014 and have the energy storage system in place in the first quarter of 2017.
For more:http://www.fiercesmartgrid.com/story/heco-seeking-energy-storage-renewable-integration/2014-05-07?utm_medium=nl&utm_source=internal
- see this report
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HECO to save $74M a year on renewable generation

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