more in this section
If Only Yosemite Was a Video Game
Is Hosting a World Cup Like Sporting a Chanel Bag?
Gas Mileage Labels Get Sophisticated
California Rejects Ban on Plastic Bags
Delivering Good News on the Stork
The Scientist and the Journalist Can Be Friends
Cops and College: Do Police Need Book Smarts?
Do School Lunches Plump Up Poor Kids?
An Emotional Timeline of Sept. 11, 2001
Liberals Gone Wild
also by this author
David Richardson
David Richardson began his journalism career operating a video news service in Washington, D.C., that covered federal agencies and Congress. His film ...
Balancing the Power of Offshore Wind
Fears that wind only provides power when it’s blowing outside could be neutralized by drawing from a wide area — like the U.S. Atlantic coast.
Shining Light on Clean Energy Superbugs
Overcoming some of the obstacles that have hindered petri-dish-to-gas-pump schemes in the past, scientists are finding ways to produce high-octane fuel and even pure hydrogen from co-opted algae.
New Agency Puts Clean Energy on Front Burner
While Arunava Majumdar says America urgently needs to come up with clean-energy “game changers,” until now there hasn’t been a systematic approach to develop them.
White Nose Swings at European Bats
A fungus linked to widespread destruction of U.S. bat colonies has been found on a thriving French bat.
Little Stores and Fatter Kids
Lots of urban kids are flocking to eat crappy food peddled by corner stores, but both kids and vendors can be shown a more nutritious way.
A Second Life For Orbiting Carbon Observatory?
As the need to measure carbon absorption takes on global political and environmental import, researchers are rushing to resurrect a project that literally crashed and sank.
The Good, The Bad and … Well, You Decide
In sizing up a possible opponent’s intentions, men make snap judgments based on the shape of the guy’s head.
Vulcan Logic and the Missing Sink
Researchers studying a mashup of existing data are tracking exactly where carbon is entering — and exiting — the atmosphere.
Emotional Vérité: If You Can See It You Can Feel It
In a sequel to an experiment from the days of silent film, a multinational team of psychology researchers has shown that we perceive emotions based on what we bring to the table.
Virus Swarm May Lie Behind Honey Bee Catastrophe
Researchers examining the recently unveiled genome of the honey bee think they’ve uncovered a big clue in dealing with the colony collapse disorder ravaging U.S. hives.
Receive 1 year (6 issues) of our print magazine for just $24.95. Miller-McCune features polished, in-depth reports on research and solutions across the policy spectrum — from health care, education and energy to international affairs, poverty and the global economy. It's a must read for well-informed and solutions-driven individuals.
close this window
The Empowering Power of Ice
Blocks of ice are joining molten salt and compressed air as ways to deliver yesterday’s energy when it’s wanted today.
Just when most of the country has “had it up to here” with ice, a coalition of publicly run electric utilities in Southern California say it has plans to cool the state’s energy problems by making even more.
The Southern California Public Power Authority announced last month it plans to construct a 53 megawatt energy storage project over the next two years to store power — in blocks of ice.
David Walden, energy systems manager for the authority, said on-peak power demand is the one of the biggest problems facing the region’s electric utilities. He told Miller-McCune that power purchased during peak hours is not only “expensive,” but that the generators “typically dispatched within the industry to meet peak demand are the most inefficient units that we have.”
In a press release, the authority said its new project will “permanently reduce California’s peak energy demand by shifting as much as 64 gigawatts of on-peak electrical consumption to off-peak periods.” How? By switching off air conditioners and instead, using thousands of tons of ice to cool commercial space.
The authority plans to deploy an energy storage system called Ice Bear, developed by Windsor, Colo.-based Ice Energy. The units will be distributed among 1,500 rooftop and commercial air conditioners over the authority’s 7,000-square-mile service area. Tied in to normal rooftop air conditioners, Ice Bear units will be used to freeze hundreds of gallons of water nightly, when demand for power, and its price, are lower.
During torrid working hours when air conditioners are the major draw on California’s power grid, Ice Bear switches off air conditioning and circulates the warm air from the building’s interior over special panels chilled by melting ice. The resulting cool air is then pumped through the ventilation system back into the building.
Once the ice is completely melted, which Ice Energy said takes about six hours, the air conditioning system switches back into normal operation and the cycle starts again. By that time, the power authority said, the peak-load period will have passed, resulting in less strain on the power grid and “an overall 8 percent efficiency advantage” for the customer.
Shifting energy generation away from demand has become more common, especially with renewable sources that can’t produce on demand. Solar projects, for example, may use molten salt or compressed air to release the sun’s energy once it’s gone down. Other projects have called for pumping water into upstream reservoirs at night when rates are cheaper, then letting it gush through hydroelectric facilities during peak hours.
Ice Energy, for its part, likens its product to using a battery, but without heavy metals or noxious chemicals.
Much of California’s historical summer electricity shortfalls have occurred on hot days when air conditioners suck up to a third of the state’s electricity and either generation or transmission can’t keep up. Meanwhile, climate change, not surprisingly, is expected to make the pinch worse.
Bill Carnahan, the authority’s executive director, said the project “is a convenient and cost-effective solution for managing peak demand. By using storage to change how — and more importantly when — energy is consumed by air conditioning, we can offset enough peak demand in the region to serve the equivalent of 10,000 homes.”
This isn’t the Ice Energy’s first foray into California, having worked on much smaller scales with the Pacific Gas and Electric Company’s “Shift and Save” program since 2007, and the city of Redding since last summer.
Walden said signing up for the program is relatively simple. “We do all the installation,” he said. Customers need only provide an access agreement similar to that used for any other piece of utility equipment, such as a transformer or meter.
“The system is compatible with 85 percent of existing air conditioning units,” he said. And cooling with ice made overnight consumes less electricity than running air conditioners during the day, “partly because it’s cooler at night, and partly because the small compressors used to make ice are more efficient than the larger compressors used on commercial air conditioners.” He added that air conditioners’ life spans increase because they aren’t on as much.
Walden said the authority has been using the system on its own buildings “for over five years. … There’s a lot of history behind the product showing that it works.”
Sign up for our free e-newsletter.
Are you on Facebook? Become our fan.
Follow us on Twitter.
word on the street
Leave a Reply
search
follow us on:
join our newsletter:
from the source
The Balance of Evil-Doing: Kiri’s Impacts
Having completed his 5,000-mile voyage, Kristian Beadle weighs his trip’s carbon use and examines whether the benefits balance the costs.
Volunteer Work Prolongs Lives of Frail Elderly
New research finds that among the elderly, functional limitations are associated with an increased risk of dying — but only for those who don’t do volunteer work.
Public Schools: An Untapped Recreational Resource
Researchers suggest limiting liability issues to make playgrounds and other recreation areas on school grounds accessible as a cost-effective way to promote public health.
You Can’t Paper Over the Plastic
The new documentary ‘Bag It’ reaches from the plastic sacks stuffed under your sink to the malign role disposable plastics play in global life.
Battleground Cyberspace
A stealthy flash drive attack emphasizes that hackers are toying with cyber warfare between sovereign states.
This is a great idea. This type of creative solution is what can occur when you don’t have the option of just adding power plants to meet “demand,” which many times is just waste.