Energy storage needs for wind power systems

Conference · Sat Jan 01 04:00:00 EST 1977

OSTI ID:7300749

Reed, J W

Wind varies on all time scales, but hourly and longer term oscillations are most important to economicl wind energy extraction schemes. Periodic variations in available wind energy, of diurnal, synoptic, annual, and larger scales, are not often correlated with demand so that some form of energy storge is needed. Most current ERDA-sponsored research in wind energy assumes connection to an existing power network and resource storage in the form of saved fossil fuels. Long term hourly wind observations at several representative U.S. locations have been used to show that a totally independent and perfectly reliable wind energy system would require an impractically large storage capacity, primarily to cover year-to-year and annual cycles of available wind energy. As reliability is allowed to decrease, a considerable reduction in storage capacity is possible. This is demonstrated by statistical results for several climatic regimes.

• Research Organization: Sandia Labs., Albuquerque, NM (USA)
• DOE Contract Number: EY-76-C-04-0789
• OSTI ID: 7300749
• Report Number(s): SAND-76-9058; CONF-770210-6
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

17 WIND ENERGY
170400 -- Wind Energy-- Economic
Industrial
& Business Aspects
170603* -- Wind Energy Engineering-- Power-Conversion Systems
AVAILABILITY
ECONOMICS
EFFICIENCY
ENERGY SOURCES
ENERGY STORAGE
OPTIMIZATION
POWER
POWER GENERATION
POWER PLANTS
RENEWABLE ENERGY SOURCES
STORAGE
WIND POWER
WIND POWER PLANTS