Ready When Needed Dispatchable Wind Energy

March 22, 2007 – Vol.11 No.52

READY WHEN NEEDED: DISPATCHABLE WIND ENERGY.

Sometimes the wind blows strong late into the night when people are deep asleep. At other times the wind blows on weekends when business and industry are often closed.

The wind is controlled by climate, topography, atmospheric conditions and the weather events, not by the clock, the calendar or economies.

Unfortunately wind that blows at off hours - and can’t be put to work generating clean power - is a wasted resource. Off peak wind needs to be utilized as soon as possible. (We need all the renewable, emission-free power we can get.)

General Compression of Attleboro, Massachusetts thinks that wind turbines should be used to compress air, not generate electricity, and thus store energy for later use. When needed compressed air would be released and used to drive generators. Power from wind energy stored in compressed air would be dispatchable at peak periods or any other time electricity is needed on the grid.

The company, which has received $5 million in its initial round of funding the development of its Dispatchable Wind Turbine System, wants to replace the gearbox and power generation equipment inside the nacelle of utility-grade turbines with its proprietary and patented compression technology. The same foundations, towers and blades would be used.

As conceived when the blades of a turbine turn in the wind, the company’s technology would compress air that would be sent down a pipe in the tower to a network of underground high-pressure pipes, or preferably (and more economically) into a geologic feature such as a salt dome, aquifer, limestone cavern, or depleted natural gas field.

The high pressure pipeline network could provide enough compressed air to provide 6-12 hours of power to the grid depending on demand. The geologic feature - having greater storage volume - could store greater amounts of energy. Electricity dispatched at peak periods would be more valuable too, thus earn more revenues than wind energy sold to the grid in non-peak hours.

General Compression also says that rated capacity of each turbine could be increased with its technology. On a grander scale a typical 100-megawatt wind farm converted to the company’s compression technology could be upgraded to produce 400-megawatts of power according to the company website. Visit General Compression at http://www.generalcompression.com/