2010 MIT Energy Conference

2010 MIT Energy Conference

It is comforting to know that there are minds at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology thinking up ways to commercialize many new renewable energy technological developments for the solar, hydrogen, and energy storage.

The 2010 MIT Energy Conference was an open house to all of the energy research projects being conducted by both faculty and students of the institute.  The main goal of the research according to MIT's Energy Initiative director, Ernest Moniz, is to work with the renewable energy and power industries to commercialize groundbreaking technologies.  He noted that their energy technology ideas cannot be commercialized in a garage like you can with Internet Technology (IT).

Exactly 20% of MIT's faculty is involved in some form of energy research.  Energy is a big business at MIT.  The 2010 MIT Energy Conference was not just some science fair.  MIT has been very involved in the energy sector having already formed companies in the industry. The most notable of which is 1366 Technologies.

MIT is also home to one of the 40 nationwide Energy Frontier Research Centers that are solely funded by the U.S. Department of Energy through stimulus funds.  

Of their many energy research projects, developing energy storage technologies may be one of the most important to the energy industry.  Large scale or utility scale energy storage systems must be commercialized in order to ensure our nation's energy security.  Only 2.5% of America's energy grid capacity can be stored compared to Europe's 10% and Japan's 15% storage capacities.  This could be a foreshadowing of further energy troubles for the U.S. if the proper technology is not developed.  Energy storage is vital for incorporating solar and wind energy into the grid which are renewable but intermittent energy sources.

The 2010 MIT Energy Conference is a bright spot in the timeline t oward our country's energy independence and security.  We can also be sure that there are other academic institutions, companies and organizations that are putting forth the same level of effort in bringing the best possible ideas on energy to fruition.

Rich Hessler Solar
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The Benefits of Distributed Energy

The Benefits of Distributed Energy

Distributed energy.  Sounds good.  It is.  It's actually the ultimate goal when it comes to dealing with our energy crisis.  In the back of our minds, we want to minimize our impact on the environment.  But when it comes down to discussing energy, we simply want to make it affordable, improve the quality and the reliability of the supply.  Distributed energy does just that.  It refers to the many new technologies that have small, modular, power-generating capacity and are combined with load management and energy storage systems to provide energy at or near the point of consumption.

Traditional methods of producing energy used more centralized operations that generate power onsite and deliver it to consumers through high-voltage power lines.  Examples of these more centralized operations are nuclear power plants, coal burning plants, and hydroelectric damns.  It goes without saying that these particular methods are have significant impacts on the environment.

Distributed energy requires consumers to produce their own energy onsite to feed into their utility's electrical grid.  Distributed energy involves a wide range of technologies including wind turbines, solar power, fuel cells, microturbines, reciprocating engines, load reduction technologies, and battery storage systems.  These distributed energy technologies are used to produce baseload power, peak power, backup power, remote power, power quality, as well as cooling and heating.

The effective employment of distributed energy also relieves congestion in transmission lines, prevents energy rate fluctuations, stabilizes the electricity grid, and re-establishes energy security.  Because distributed energy sources need to be connected to the grid, they also support and strengthen the central-station model of electricity generation, transmission, and distribution.  

 The Department of Energy is currently developing technologies to integrate renewable and distributed energy systems into the electricity grid at the distribution level.  Americans must make efforts to retrofitting their properties with renewable and distributed energy systems that improve the overall effectiveness of our energy infrastructure.

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