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Increasing momentum.

Article Excerpt
Report from the Electricity Storage Association's annual meeting, 21-22 May (hastily switched from Toronto to Chicago due to SARS concerns),

Electricity deregulation will not ever work because electricity cannot be stored." With this quote from a member of the Californian Senate, Dr Philip Symons of Symons/EECI, retiring chairman of the Electricity Storage Association (ESA), opened the meeting. With a smile, he issued a challenge to prove the statement untrue. The gauntlet was immediately picked up by Dr Imre Gyuk, of the US Department of Energy who described the latest changes in the organisation and strategy of the Department.

The new Office of Electricity Transmission and Distribution (OETD) will form the strategy for development of the power network and provide enhanced opportunities for research and development projects in many technologies. Dr Gyuk expected the budget for storage development to rise to $18 million in year 2005--a major increase from the present level of $5 million. Dr Gyuk's wide ranging and thought provoking talk set out a challenge to make sure that energy storage will be recognised as a technology of benefit to society. Three major projects illustrated the relevance of storage: the 1 MW one minute flywheel system for the New York subway; the 120 MWh flow battery for TVA; and the 27 MW battery for Golden Valley.

Further evidence of renewed interest in storage was developed by Pramod Kulkarni of the California Energy Commission (CEC). The CEC had launched an initiative to seek proposals for projects to demonstrate electrical energy storage, show its cost effectiveness and liability and be capable of replication and wider adoption in the future (see MPS April 2003).

Further signs that electricity storage is gaining a much higher standing in government circles included the USDoE setting out its "vision" (see panel), which highlights energy storage as one of the technologies needed to redesign the American power infrastructure. Brad Roberts of S&C Electric attended DoE's "vision meeting" in April and he reported back on this initiative. Sixty-five senior executives from utilities, equipment manufacturers, academia and government agencies gathered to hear an announcement of a major...