Energy Storage: A Nontechnical Guide - Hardcover

Baxter, Richard

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 159370027X ISBN 13: 9781593700270

Publisher: PennWell Corp., 2005

Synopsis

Energy Storage: A Nontechnical Guide, by Richard Baxter, is a complete resource on the operation of energy storage technologies and how they interact in the marketplace today. Baxter explains new opportunities for these technologies, detailed descriptions of the technologies and their market applications, and business opportunities energy storage technologies can expect throughout the industry. The book explains how, and under what conditions, energy storage technologies can become a vital component of the electric power industry.

About this title

About the Author

Richard Baxter is responsible for evaluating technology and related business models at Ardour Capital Investments, an investment bank focused on the alternative energy and energy technology markets. Before joining Ardour Capital, Richard was the Director of Member Affairs at the Energy Storage Council where he was involved in raising the visibility of energy storage technologies for federal and state government officials. Prior to this, Richard led the electric power research at the Yankee Group, evaluating growth prospects for new technology firms and providing due diligence services to the financial industry. Richard also spent time at the Standard & Poor's DRI Energy Group where he was responsible for key environmental and electric power components of the US electric power forecasts for senior Utility executives on emerging technical and market changes. Through this work, Richard is the author numerous market and technical reports, industry journal articles, and is an accomplished public speaker. Richard has a M.S. degree in Energy Management and Policy from the University of Pennsylvania, a B.S. in History from Tennessee State University, and a B.S. in Materials Engineering from Virginia Tech.

From the Inside Flap

Energy Storage: A Nontechnical Guide, by Richard Baxter, is a complete resource on the operation of energy storage technologies and how they interact in the marketplace today. Baxter explains new opportunities for these technologies, detailed descriptions of the technologies and their market applications, and business opportunities energy storage technologies can expect throughout the industry. The book explains how, and under what conditions, energy storage technologies can become a vital component of the electric power industry. Energy Storage: A Nontechnical Guide, by Richard Baxter, is a complete resource on the operation of energy storage technologies and how they interact in the marketplace today. Baxter explains new opportunities for these technologies, detailed descriptions of the technologies and their market applications, and business opportunities energy storage technologies can expect throughout the industry. The book explains how, and under what conditions, energy storage technologies can become a vital component of the electric power industry.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Foreword Electricity is the most useful and flexible of all energy sources. To provide this capability, the power industry in modern industrialized societies developed power stations of various sizes and capabilities to provide a continuous, reliable, and affordable supply of electricity as the demand varied on daily, weekly, and seasonal cycles. Lately however, this centrally organized and controlled market design has become unstable. This has caused investment for new large power stations to become riskier as repaying their development costs can no longer be guaranteed through assured power sales in a highly regulated market.

Solutions to this challenge follow one of two competing strategies. The first is simply to continue extending the power transmission grid in order to open up additional markets for these new generation facilities. The second is to focus on a distributed supply strategy reliant upon smaller and distributed power generation and energy storage resources to provide a more stable and secure electricity supply. Each of these strategies implies a different direction for the future of the power industry. The first strategy represents a continued centralization of power production to offset increasing transmission infrastructure costs, whereas the second strategy represents a focus on local production and management of electricity to avoid excessive infrastructure build-out and grid management costs. This second option is the most promising one as it enables significant progression toward improvements of energy efficiency, leads to enhanced energy security, and above all promotes wind and solar power for the electricity supply.

Richard Baxter shows in his book how diverse the possibilities of electricity storage really are. These technologies have been widely overlooked by the power industry for many years as the industry s focus has been fixated on large-scale supply strategies. Through this fundamental book for the energy industry of tomorrow, Richard Baxter has broadened the industry s horizon by showing how it will be revolutionized by energy storage technologies enabling greater use of renewable energy, and promoting a more flexible, efficient, and stable self-correcting energy infrastructure.

Dr. Hermann Scheer General Chairman World Council for Renewable Energy President EURSOLAR Recipient of the Alternative Nobel Prize Member of the German Bundestag

Edition details

• Publisher: PennWell Corp.
• Publication date: 2005
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 159370027X
• ISBN 13: 9781593700270
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 302