We are setting goals of 20% of all our electricity being generated by renewables in the next few years. This is pretty much a world wide target, but it seems that Mother Nature loves to mess up our plans. If you doubt it, check out wind generation vs. peak loads! I worked for a utility in Kansas for many years. Kansas is one of the windiest places around, but during the hot summer - it doesn't blow. The sun beats down, the temperature climbs, and the wind is calm. Unfortunately, this is all so true all over the wind belt.
So what is an engineer to do? Glad you asked. Tuesday's Super Session #1 (Energy Storage and the Integration of Renewables - 1:00pm) is focused on that very subject! They are exploring the missing link - Energy Storage. Many of my wind generator friends get sensitive when I bring up this subject, but we have to take advantage of all the smart grid technologies to get us out of this problem. PES has a lot of great session planned for the Expo like this one. My big problems is being in so many places at once. This is a great problem to have. I have been to so many conferences that my e-mail has been more interesting than the event - thank God this isn't one of them!!!
