Report Urges Policymakers to Focus on Planning, Storage to Increase Renewables

U.S. policymakers must focus more closely on developing new energy storage technologies as they consider a national renewable electricity standard, according to one of the main recommendations in a report discussed Nov. 16 at a Newsmaker press conference.

The report, "Integrating Renewable Electricity on the Grid," was sponsored the American Physical Society and was presented by study co-authors Jim Misewich of Brookhaven National Laboratory and Kathryn Clay, director of research at the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers. The study's focus aimed at integrating renewable energy into our electricity grid.

Findings looked at ways to meet a potential national renewable electricity standard, which authors said would help to unify the fragmented U.S. grid system and is an important step in the wider adoption of using more wind and solar for energy generation.

Because of the intermittency of solar and wind, Clay and Misewich said, without an increased focus on storage devices, "it will be difficult to meet proposed renewable electricity standards."

Another challenge facing the grid involves the long-distance transmission of renewable electricity from places that receive a lot of wind and sun to those that do not. To address it, Clay urged a more aggressive effort aimed at national, long-term transmission planning.

Misewich said new efforts to build an offshore transmission backbone for wind projects was an "exciting development that could create a opportunity to build a new offshore wind industry."

The report urges the Department of Energy to increase research on materials to develop energy storage devices and by encouraging the DOE to focus on long-distance superconducting direct current cables to bring renewable electricity to load centers, lessening the chance that power will be disrupted. The report also calls for examining renewable electricity in light of a unified grid instead of one that is fragmented and improving the accuracy of weather forecasts to allow for better integration of renewable electricity on the grid.

-- Frank Maisano, [email protected]