I'll try and put this into a digestible prose, I mean who would really want to sit back and consider the infrastructure of energy for fun, but take it too seriously and the terminology simply alienates most of the population either by inducing instant insomnia cures or by getting overtly techie on our flash-topic appetites... so what's the point of discussing infrastructure unless there is a personal, business or community benefit which people can relate to, topics like this sail to the pages of industry magazines which sit on office coffee tables and boost a few peoples recycling volume... the point is technology, in the words or Dubwya, is actually starting to provide some of the most promising opportunities for new energy we have ever seen - and I'm not talking about new ways to generate energy either - Energy Storage is becoming more and more feasible every year.

Energy storage can mean so many things, so I'm going to focus in on one particular technology, flow-batteries. Flow-batteries are like rechargeable batteries but the chemical systems are different. As such the ones using a particular type of chemical solution called vanadium do not degrade in the manner a rechargeable battery you are used to would, so they can last for decades.

So what's with the headline? Well we use energy storage already in a number of ways, for example we pump water to the top of reservoirs to store water with potential energy to be released when it is needed most, but we have yet to develop a technology which is suitable for the end user to embrace, control and ultimately determine competition - we now have one, this means you can store energy at home, at the office or as part of any community infrastructure.

The fundamental change, the new energy infrastructure era stuff is that:
We now have the ability to store energy efficiently rather than having to store fuel.
This concept is the concept you should take away with you, the rest of it is side-dressing.

So what are the implications? If you can store energy then you can choose your energy source. This means you can choose renewables, local generation, off-peak electricity, whatever is most suitable to yourself, your business or your community, and then you can store this energy to be used as and when you want it - same as a battery allows you to use portable devices. Hence the increased competition, your choice, they compete.

The more you consider this, the more you should realise that this allows us to re-balance the energy market by making those who generate energy become truly competitive, you don't have to use any particular supplier because you can choose to store what you want, when you want, from whom you want.

What else? Well suppose you are considering the possibility of installing your own form of generation, be it at a home, business or community scale, using renewables or otherwise, you are going to be interested in not just providing enough for your use, but also how you can make some money on your investment from the excess by exporting to the grid. Difficulty is that it's not technical safe to have hundreds or thousands of individuals providing intermittent energy input into the national grid, and to become a generator you need to understand the legal and technical issues which arise. These resources can be pooled, storage systems can be used to balance any input, and release it as required to users directly or to the national grid. The management of the intermittent and small scale generation can be undertaken by the storage operator who can also provide the complimentary services and resources required.

The extent to which storage can be integrated into our infrastructure is quite remarkable. Storage can be used at many scales to address many issues. Peak-levelling is where large generators store during low demand periods to supply during peak demand periods, reducing the generating management and fluctuations. Large, intermittent renewables, such as wind farms can become stable sources of energy through a storage system. Local generators can benefit from not only these issues, but they can become reliable contributors who do not complicate balancing and settlement arrangements. Individuals can store energy at home, using cheaper energy supplied by any source they choose, and they can use it to re-fuel electric vehicles, for example (see re-fuel link below). But perhaps most important by taking an active interest in energy use, businesses and private users will start to manage their consumption.

This probably sounds a little to idealistic, but if we take a stock check of the existing systems at use today we can see the following already exist around the globe:

• Large wind-farm storage

• Main generator peak-levelling

• UPS systems which reduce peak demand costs by not only providing back up by but contributing during daily use

• Electric 'recharge' stations (instead of petrol pumps)

• Remote battery systems for military operations


The only point to make now is, that the market is immature, in terms of appreciation and understanding, supply of the technology, understanding the risks and the difficulties, and for the time being the future is a matter of economies of scale and the interest users have in becoming storers.

Here are two links, one to a manufacturer, the other a systems installer. Look out for market opportunities, there are plenty....!

http://www.vrbpower.com/

http://www.refueltec.com/applications.html


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