Use local, clean, renewable energy for PEI needs

“PEI needs to have re-usable, recyclable, regenerating energy, like solar, wind, bio-mass, wave.  Government needs to support shift to solar and wind power, and invest in renewable energy.

Ideally all energy used would be generated on PEI – reduce reliance on electricity from mainland (New Brunswick, Quebec).

Get power utilities (e.g. Maritime Electric, NB Power) to buy back power from individual wind and solar power generators.

Build a natural gas pipeline to PEI and use the fixed link as a conduit – piggy back on the Confederation Bridge.”

Notes

We already have enough wind turbines on PEI to supply almost all the energy needs of the province when they are running at peak capacity – i.e. when the wind is blowing (see this link for an almost real-time break-down of PEI’s energy sources).  There are times when more than 95% of PEI’s power usage is supplied by our wind turbines!  However, much of the time our power is supplied from New Brunswick, like in the image below from 4:14pm on January 25, 2016.

The problem is that we need to store the power created when the wind is blowing so it can be used when the wind isn’t.  The same is true for solar energy – solar panels only produce power when the sun is shining, and it needs to be stored for use at night.

Power storage solutions are just becoming feasible from a cost perspective.  These include battery storage (e.g. lithium-ion, liquid metal, etc.), pumping water to a higher elevation to be used for hydro electricity, and spinning up flywheels to store the energy.

References

• How Much Does Storage Really Cost? Lazard Weighs In.
  • Fitzgerald says that, “storage can do a lot for the grid, and it can do most when behind-the-meter. Regulation is changing that will allow distributed storage to collect revenue for these services.” In consequence, he says, “most of the industry is focused on opening up new revenue streams and moving toward customer-sited and customer-focused services, such as demand charge management or solar-plus-storage solutions.” Lazard’s Mir adds, “We see that demand increasing pretty rapidly.”
• Why Tesla’s “Powerwall” Battery is Amazing: Tesla CEO Elon Musk introduced the world to the “Powerwall,” a wall-mounted battery for your house which aims to accelerate our transition to clean solar and wind-power. The product marks a really important moment in humanity’s battle to lower the CO2 emissions that are causing runaway climate change.

• Donald Sadoway: The missing link to renewable energy: What’s the key to using alternative energy, like solar and wind? Storage — so we can have power on tap even when the sun’s not out and the wind’s not blowing. In this accessible, inspiring talk, Donald Sadoway takes to the blackboard to show us the future of large-scale batteries that store renewable energy. As he says: “We need to think about the problem differently. We need to think big. We need to think cheap.”

• Energy 2064 with Professor Donald R. Sadoway (MIT Professor) – how energy storage – i.e. a battery – is needed to harness wind and solar energy.  He invented the “liquid metal” battery – 304 year life; built where used; enables distributed energy creation / storage.  Carbon-free electricity plus dirt used to make steel.

• Aquion Energy manufactures clean and sustainable saltwater batteries that outlive and outperform traditional battery chemistries. This includes bulk energy storage for large-scale applications like PEI wind turbines.