In reply to Jones Beene's message of Thu, 6 Mar 2014 18:43:43 -0800: Hi, [snip] >Lithium really is brain-dead for Wind farm application ... maybe that >pathology goes with the territory. > >Advanced flywheel storage probably makes the most sense. Below is one >company that has done well with them. Smart Energy's flywheel is >4th-generation featuring longer life than batteries, lower-maintenance, >higher charge-discharge cycles, higher efficiency and zero emissions. > >http://beaconpower.com/files/bp_intro.pdf
These systems obviously provide excellent rapid response, and as such should doubtless be included, however a single unit can only deliver full power for a few minutes. In order to compensate for cloudy days etc. a larger buffer is required, which probably means some form of chemical storage, or molten salt. Of course flywheels could also be used for longer term storage, but I suspect it would become prohibitively expensive to do so. Fuel cells might actually be the cheapest for long term chemical storage, because the expensive part of the device is the fuel cell itself, while the energy storage capacity depends only on the amount of externally stored fuel, and fuel storage is relatively cheap. Regards, Robin van Spaandonk http://rvanspaa.freehostia.com/project.html
