For over one hundred years, the electric grid has been supplying power to critical infrastructure, but the existing grid is becoming obsolete. The systems put in place over a century ago were not designed for today’s needs; our energy consumption increases while, at the same time, the world’s population grows. It is crucial to improve the electric grid to enable green power generation.
Here at UBC, faculty members in the Energy Systems Research Group are dedicated to enhancing the understanding of the control, production, transmission and consumption of electrical energy in order to develop a sustainable energy plan for future generations.
The importance of batteries for green energy generation
Although it is hard to replace the vast amount of energy required by society with alternative energy, researchers continue to develop new technologies that can help to reduce the amount of fuel energy we consume every day.
Many green energy sources generate energy intermittently. Wind and solar power, for example, are not constantly available. The energy generated from these sources needs storage to make up the difference; when there is excess generation, the energy can be stored and used during times when there is insufficient energy generation.
TheEnergy Systems Research Group has partnered with Alpha Technologies and Corvus Energy to study ways to maximize the efficiency of battery storage. This project is part of UBC’s Campus as a Living Lab.
A building scale energy system has been installed in the Fred Kaiser building at UBC. It will convert AC power coming from the grid and store it in rechargeable lithium battery packs. During times when the building has high power consumption, energy stored in these batteries will be injected back into the grid using a converter. The Energy Systems Research Group is also studying the integration of energy conversion technology. This will help the overall system by standardizing power conversion to facilitate the incorporation of renewable energy into the power system.
How automating energy use can reduce consumption and costs
The existing grid is not designed to incorporate power supplied from a number of small intermittent sources. One way of improving the use of the system and avoiding the high cost of replacing infrastructure is simply to reduce energy consumption. We are familiar with this idea in our daily lives. For industry, with much larger energy needs, combining energy storage with automated load management systems can significantly reduce energy consumption and costs. Shifting a less time-sensitive load to off-peak hours, heating a water tank at night for example, can reduce strain on the grid. Batteries can compensate for changes in the load by storing energy when there is an excess, and releasing energy at peak consumption times. Load management systems can optimize the efficiency of the existing grid.
The value of micro grids
To further develop alternative energy generation, it is ideal to have small distributed-generation systems. Within each small community, there are potential renewable power sources such as wind and water. Solar panels, wind turbines and hydroelectric power systems could be built within each community. Distributing efficient storage within the existing grid will make it possible to use intermittent green energy sources, but the storage needed to use these sources is very expensive. If these small generators could connect with each other to form micro grids, sharing load management and storage, it will be possible to expand the use of green power.
Electrical engineers are working hard to foster these trends in technology research and implementation to preserve the planet.