battery storage Archives - Michaels Energy

Apr 10

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Electric Utility 2050

By Jeff Ihnen Energy Rant No Comments

As we prepare to take our energy storage solutions to market, I gathered recent news reports, analyzed them all, and came to some conclusions. I concluded that utilities, and especially regulators, need to think differently. What got us here – constant load growth and earning returns on conventional rate base by building power plants, transmission, and distribution systems – will not get us there (the energy transition) without turmoil and upheaval. Sign up for AESP’s decarb course to learn more details. Public service commissions get 50% off. Why? Because they must know this stuff. Nothing Lasts Forever Like everything, the…

May 25

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Maximize Grid Battery Value with Smart Deployment

By Jeff Ihnen Energy Rant No Comments

Time flies even during pandemics. Two years ago, I found the quote, “Casual observers are often wrong” by Charles Bayless with Public Utilities Fortnightly. Back then, the Rant topic was that battery storage increases carbon emissions – because “Batteries, or any storage, only swap dispatchable, conventional resources; never renewable resources. Result: increased emissions.” Whenever energy is converted from electricity to battery and back to electricity, the nasty second law of thermodynamics intervenes to steal some energy. The result is more source energy consumption and more GHG emissions. That introduction leads to today’s edition of “casual observers are often wrong.” This…

Apr 07

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Net Zero: An Unserious Weapon Against Decarbonization

By Jeff Ihnen Energy Rant No Comments

You all know people who are always going to do something great but never make it happen. Consider the hapless New Year’s resolution for which someone plans to lose weight. They successfully diet between a cheeseburger and fries for lunch and a mound of pasta with rich sauce for dinner: the “diet” lasted a few hours and accomplished nothing. The empty New Year’s resolution de jure for decarbonization is net zero, where similarly, there is excess at times and shortages at other times. Whether it’s net-zero-energy building design or net-zero-carbon electricity production, the achievement is easy and similarly not helpful.…

Sep 23

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Lithium-Ion Batteries for Commercial Buildings – Pass the Schnapps

By Jeff Ihnen Energy Rant 2 Comments

The batteries are coming! Maybe. I recently participated in an EPA-sponsored webinar to explore the results of a couple of case studies of lithium-ion batteries used to shave and shape building electrical loads. The technology is more nascent or even embryonic than I would have guessed. Interestingly, I’ve read a lot about systems approaches to fighting the COVID – that is, our bodies’ systems to take on and ward off attacks by viruses effectively. I thought, wow, this is where we (Michaels) differentiate ourselves by thinking holistically, beyond the widget. Like many other technologies, such as combined heat and power,…

Mar 10

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Innovative Electricity Storage Crushes Batteries; Death Sentence for Duck

By Jeff Ihnen Energy Rant One Comment

I’m not in the electricity storage business, but I can recognize lousy ideas when I see them. Grid-scale battery storage is a bad idea. It will never be anything more than a frequency and voltage regulation technology, although I have to say these are critical functions that batteries can provide. Innovation comes out of left field while everyone else is trying to make a pig fly. And when I see it, I think, “Wow, why did I not think of that?” The Roots of Sound Storage Thermal power generation, particularly from coal, and to a lesser extent, nuclear, have enormous…

Apr 08

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Fascination: Battery Storage Increases Carbon Emissions

By Jeff Ihnen Energy Rant One Comment

“Casual observers are often wrong.” Why didn’t I think of this for a tagline? It is a line inked by utility veteran Charles Bayless in the March issue of Public Utilities Fortnightly. His article, “Does Storage Increase Carbon?” is the basis of this post. By the way, many politicians make policy and law without knowing anything about that which they are making policy or laws – as though engineers, scientists, and the private sector simply aren’t trying. Sure. We’re not trying to cure cancer or produce affordable and reliable zero-emission energy. No. There would be no money or fame in…

Oct 08

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Brain Function, Sparrows, and Storage

By Jeff Ihnen Energy Rant No Comments

A recent webinar delivered some interesting facts to me. The average human brain weighs three pounds, as verified here. The presenter said the brain represents 2% of an average person’s weight but consumes 20% of the blood flow and calories. I thought, wow – that is interesting. The inverse of 2% is 50. The average person weighs 150 lbs? I would say that is quite generous! The large part of the brain in charge of logic, reasoning, reading, writing, and thinking is the neocortex. Indeed, engaging that large portion of the organ for a long time wears a person down.…

Jul 16

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Shared Economy and Distributed Capitalism? Pffff

By Jeff Ihnen Energy Rant No Comments

I spent last week at the Grid Evolution Summit presented by the Smart Electric Power Alliance (SEPA) in the Nation’s Capital. The opening speaker, Jeremy Rifkin, has authored 20-some books, the most recent of which is called, “The Zero Marginal Cost Society.” This post is based on a related article you can read yourself, here. The crux of the book, message, and article is that “investor-based capitalism, which focuses on resources for immediate returns, will inevitably be replaced by a more distributed and streamlined network-based capitalism, alongside a sharing economy governed by a high-tech global commons.” You have heard the…

Dec 19

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Distributed Energy Resources – Messing with Near Perfection

By Jeff Ihnen Energy Rant One Comment

A couple years ago at an AESP conference, we had a fascinating speaker and topic. It was one of those that had me thinking deeply and philosophically. The subject was technology and the future. The takeaway: every problem is either a technical problem or one of human flaw. As for technical problems, there is nothing short of violating the laws of physics, including the second law of thermodynamics, that humans can’t and won’t someday solve: cancer, heart disease, failed or destroyed body parts, and of course, energy, and even aging. As we say at Michaels, (although we are not yet…

Aug 31

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Distributed Energy; Batteries and Bread Machines

By Jeff Ihnen Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant 3 Comments

The Association of Energy Services Professionals (AESP) Summer Conference included interesting bookend plenary discussions for this post. The opening plenary featured motivational speaker, Murray Banks; not to be confused with Matt Foley: “eating a steady diet of government cheese and living in a van down by the river”. Actually, if triathlons and mountaineering were auto racing, the Banks family would be the Andrettis. The closing plenary featured representatives from SolarCity, Opus One Solutions, and Enbridge, Inc. SolarCity is the Elon Musk-owned photovoltaic manufacturer/installer. Opus One is a smart grid software company with ties to Tesla as well. Enbridge is a…

Electric Utility 2050

Maximize Grid Battery Value with Smart Deployment

Net Zero: An Unserious Weapon Against Decarbonization

Lithium-Ion Batteries for Commercial Buildings – Pass the Schnapps

Innovative Electricity Storage Crushes Batteries; Death Sentence for Duck

Fascination: Battery Storage Increases Carbon Emissions

Brain Function, Sparrows, and Storage

Shared Economy and Distributed Capitalism? Pffff

Distributed Energy Resources – Messing with Near Perfection

Distributed Energy; Batteries and Bread Machines

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