WARRENDALE, PA—In the latest issue of the new journal MRS Energy & Sustainability—A Review Journal, Professor Jay Apt of Carnegie Mellon University turns the spotlight on one of the planet’s most pressing problems—how renewable energy sources can be better integrated into the existing electricity grid.
Apt and his colleagues have developed an extensive body of work on this subject, looking at how we can make sure that these variable energy sources provide reliable electricity on demand for people around the world, 24 hours a day. These scientists are at the cutting edge of quantifying how to use new technologies to the best advantage when integrating large-scale renewable electricity.
In this review, Apt and colleagues present a summary of research they have carried out during the four-year RenewElec (short for renewable electricity) project by a team of technical and policy experts at Carnegie Mellon University, the University of Vermont, Vermont Law School, and the Washington environmental law firm of Van Ness Feldman.
Focusing on the situation in the US, Apt argues that increasing the market share of variable renewable electric power generation from the present 4% is both technically and economically feasible. He examines new research results in several areas that could help to facilitate the large-scale integration of variable power sources into the electric power system, both in the US and around the globe.
Here are the main findings of his research:
- The seasonal variability of wind power is beginning to be understood, as are the sources of error in its day-ahead forecasts.
- Geographic aggregation of wind and solar power has long been proposed as a method to smooth their variability, but for wind power, it has been shown that there is little smoothing at timescales where the magnitude of variability is strongest.
- It has also been shown that the point of diminishing returns is reached after a relatively few wind plants have been interconnected.
The costs of interconnecting renewable energy sources are likely to be higher than building new natural gas combined-cycle plants, the research shows. Large new investments in transmission systems designed to interconnect large areas of the country are neither required nor desirable to decrease the variability of electric power generated from wind, Apt states, since there are companies now shipping batteries with the aim of expanding utility-scale electric energy storage.
While there are good prospects for lower cost electric storage for grid application, Apt argues, the profitability of storage for integration of renewable power is likely to remain a difficult issue. However, the good news is that new extremely efficient, low pollution, and fast-ramping natural gas plants have come on the market. So it is now possible to predict the amount of additional capacity of this sort that must be procured by system operators to cover the uncertainty in wind forecasts.
You can read Apt’s article in the latest issue of MRS Energy & Sustainability—A Review Journalhere.
Notes to Editors
About MRS Energy & Sustainability—A Review Journal
MRS Energy & Sustainability—A Review Journal is published by the Materials Research Society, in partnership with Cambridge University Press. First published in 2014, it includes reviews on key topics in materials research and development as they relate to energy and sustainability.
The intended readership is a broad spectrum of scientists, academics, policy makers and industry professionals, all interested in the interdisciplinary nature of the science, technology and policy aspects of energy and sustainability.
For more information, visit the journal’s website here.
About Cambridge Journals
Cambridge University Press publishes more than 350 peer-reviewed academic journals across a wide spread of subject areas, in print and online. Many of these journals are the leading academic publications in their fields and together they form one of the most valuable and comprehensive bodies of research available today.
For more information, go to: journals.cambridge.org.
About Cambridge University Press
Cambridge University Press is the publishing business of the University of Cambridge. Dedicated to excellence, its purpose is to further the University’s objective of advancing knowledge, education, learning, and research. Its extensive peer-reviewed publishing lists comprise 45,000 titles covering academic research, professional development, more than 350 research journals, school-level education, English language teaching and bible publishing. Playing a leading role in today's international market place, Cambridge University Press has more than 50 offices around the globe, and it distributes its products to nearly every country in the world.
For more information, go to www.cambridge.org.
About the Materials Research Society
MRS is an organization of over 13,000 materials researchers from academia, industry and government worldwide, and a recognized leader in promoting the advancement of interdisciplinary materials research and technology to improve the quality of life. MRS members are students and professionals hailing from physics, chemistry, biology, mathematics and engineering—the full spectrum of materials research. Headquartered in Warrendale, Pennsylvania (USA), MRS membership now spans 90 countries, with approximately 45 percent of members residing outside the United States.
MRS serves and engages members across generations to advance their careers and promote materials research and innovation. The Society produces high-quality meetings and publications, assuring that members of all career stages can present and publish their most important and timely work to an international and interdisciplinary audience. MRS continues to expand its professional development portfolio, as well as promote diversity and inclusion in the scientific workforce, with career services for researchers worldwide. The Society advocates for the importance of scientific research and innovation to policymakers and the community. And the MRS Awards program honors those whose work has already had a major impact in the field, as well as those whose work shows great promise for future leadership.
For more information about the Materials Research Society visit
mrs.org and follow
@Materials_MRS.