Book Chapter Details
Mandatory Fields
Duffy P.;Fitzpatrick C.;Conway T.;Lynch R.
2019 January
Issues in Environmental Science and Technology
Energy Sources and Supply Grids - The Growing Need for Storage
The Royal Society of Chemistry
London
Published
1
Optional Fields
© 2019 The Royal Society of Chemistry. Efficiently exploiting renewable, sustainable and green energy resources is one of the most critical challenges facing our world today. For example, as part of this challenge, Germany aims to generate 65% of its electricity from renewable sources by 2020 and Ireland aims to generate 40%. Renewable energy sources, e.g. solar and wind energy, are plentiful and sufficient to power our ever-increasing demand for more devices, technology and transportation. However, the increased demand for electricity at peak times, the increased instantaneous penetration of the grid by energy from non-conventional generation systems (such as wind turbines and solar photovoltaic) and the intermittent and non-dispatchable nature of renewable energy sources are threatening the stability of the electricity grid and limiting the ability of the transmission system operator to respond to sudden changes in generation or demand. This is particularly an issue in isolated grids such as on the island of Ireland, where the failure of a single generator results in the loss of a significant fraction of the overall grid capacity in an instant. However, in mainland Europe, the electricity grid of each nation is interconnected and synchronised, allowing the loss of a single generator in one region to be compensated for by increasing the output of the many other generators on the continent by a small amount. In the future, there will be a need for significant grid-scale storage, load levelling and stabilisation of the grid. Electric vehicles will become more prevalent and the fraction of renewables on the grid will increase significantly. These technologies and the way in which they interact with the grid will greatly affect the stability of the electricity grid. Smart and innovative interaction of these technologies with the grid raises the possibility of optimising the level of energy storage required for stable and reliable grid operation. However, lack of planning in these areas could make future cost-effective, sustainable and reliable energy solutions hard to achieve.
1350-7583
1
41
10.1039/9781788015530-00001
Grant Details