how thermal storage can save the grid

How Thermal

Storage Can

Save the Grid

Modified from a Presentation at

Green California Summit

Elton Sherwin

Managing Director, Ridgewood Capital

2

Warmer Future

Higher Emissions Scenario, 2080-2099

White House Report on Climate Change

Recent Past, 1961-1979

Number of Days Over 100ºF

2009 California Climate Adaptation Strategy

More Demand for Air Conditioning

Source: www.climatechange.ca.gov/adaptation

But there are some problems…

Renewable Power Will Save Us?

Peak Wind 10 pm to 1 am

Peak summer demand for electricity is at 4 to 6 pm,

over 16 hours after peak wind

Wind is Intermittent

Chart modified from Cal ISO,

2007 Summer Loads and Resources Operations Assessment

http://www.caiso.com/1b95/1b95abb649df4.pdf

The More Wind You Use,

The More Storage You Need

Even the Sun is Intermittent

Let’s look at the problem a bit differently

What is driving all the demand?

California

Electricity

Usage

Summer

A/C

Air Conditioning

Source: California Energy Commission

Air Conditioning

Everything Else

Pools

Hot Water

Hour of Day Florida August Electricity

To Use Renewables,

We Must Control the Air Conditioning

Source: Florida Solar Energy Center

Air Conditioning

Everything Else

Pools

Hot Water

Hour of Day

Need A Lot of Storage to Use

Wind to Power Summer Air Conditioning

Source: Florida Solar Energy Center

• Big Three

– Baltimore Air Coil

– CALMAC

– Ice Energy

• Many Independents

– Hill York in South Florida

– Others

Thermal Storage

Calmac’s Ice Bank Baltimore Air’s Ice Chiller Ice Energy’s Ice Bear

Make Ice at Night

• Air conditioner runs at night

• Making ice at night

• Wind energy is stored as ice

• Little or no change in ductwork

• Daytime load reduced by over 50%

Many Case Studies…

Taipei 101 Baltimore Air Coil project

Savings Are Significant

Source: CALMAC case study

For the Rate Payer:

• Off-peak rates

• Reduced demand charges

• Better comfort

• LEED credit

Benefits

CALMAC Systems

• Keep facility open during power emergency or outage

Merchandise Mart in Chicago Baltimore Air Coil System

Benefits to Utility:

• Tolerant of intermittent power

• Uses off-peak power

• Avoid CAPX

– Plant

– Transmission

• Improves grid reliability

• Probably improves grid efficiency & reduces CO2

• “Free” / pays for itself always

– According to vendors

Benefits

+

Customer Pays:

• New commercial

– Free

– Fewer tons of AC pay for “ice chests”

• Commercial retrofits

– 2 to 5 years B/E w/o subsidies

Utility Pays:

• Cheaper than peaker plant

Cost of Thermal Storage

• Refrigerator monitors power quality

• Backs off when the wind dies

• Turns on early in times of excess wind

• Based solely on power quality, no signal

• Equivalent of GW of demand management at the edge

Thermal Storage: UK Fridge Experiment

• Good sources of information:

– Dynamic Demand, a UK non-profit focused on autonomous demand control www.dynamicdemand.co.uk

– Pacific Northwest Lab: GridFirendly Appliance Project

• Startup to watch: RLtec in the UK. (www.rltec.com)

Thermal Storage in Refrigerators

• Least expensive to retrofit

• Almost 40% (41 million out of 107 million) of US domestic households’ hot water are electric

– Similar benefits to ice storage

• More than turning off water heaters

– Schedule the load

• Match availability of wind

– Automatic under frequency load shedding

– Cold load pickup wait for “OK to turn on”

• Startup to watch: Sequentric Energy Systems (www.sequentric.com)

Thermal Storage: Water Heaters

Move and Change the Type of Demand

From my book:

• Thermal storage be required

– All new compressors and cooling towers

• New and retrofit commercial

• Over 90 days a year of use.

• Require radios on all grid-connected AC systems

– For power emergencies

• Intermittent power on the rate table

– Different from of time-of-use rates

• Thermal storage is ideal candidate for on-bill financing (OBF)

• Require refrigeration equipment be on DR

Recommendations

Thinking about renewable

Think about thermal storage

It is hard to get cheaper than water

Conclusions

Excerpts from

Addicted to Energy

A Venture Capitalist’s Perspective

on How to Save Our Economy

and Our Climate

Elton B. Sherwin, Jr.

Copyright 2010 Elton Sherwin These pages may reprinted with attribution: From Addicted to Energy Copyright 2010 Elton Sherwin For more information, as well as downloads of the author’s PowerPoint presentations, please visit www.EltonSherwin.com Library of Congress Control Number: 2010929887 ISBN-10: 0-9827961-0-2 ISBN-13: 978-0-9827961-0-8

Energy House Publishing www.EnergyHousePublishing.com

176 ADDICTED TO ENERGY

Smart Grid Critical Success Factor

Require Commercial Air Conditioners to Run at Night

Credit Suisse moved its air-conditioning load from the day shift to the night shift on one building in New York.

This reduced CO2 emissions by 3.6 million pounds per year.240

Every commercial air conditioner should have thermal storage units and be capable of running at night. Over 2,000 “nighttime air conditioners” have been in-stalled in America and the evidence is very clear. They:

� Emit less CO2.242

� Avoid the need for new coal plants.

� Save money for building owners.243

� Use intermittent wind power.244

Dozens of studies verify that these systems pay for themselves. Yet less than 1% of America’s six million commercial buildings have installed these thermal stor-age units that enable air conditioners to run at night.

The world’s tallest building, Taipei 101, has an ice storage system installed from the Baltimore Air Coil Company.245

It is time to upgrade all six million commercial buildings in America.

Give building owners 10 years to convert, and then pull the plug on any air conditioners that do not have thermal storage.

It will save the building owners money, create jobs in America, and enable America to exploit its vast wind resources.

Buildings with “Nighttime” Air Conditioners

General Electric Co. Cincinnati U.S. Court House S. Boston

BP Plaza Houston Qualcomm San Diego

Doubletree Hotel San Diego Army National Guard Manassas

Heritage Museum Center Cincinnati Indiana State University Terre Haute

Inter-Island Terminal Honolulu Children’s Hospital Birmingham

Bellevue Place Bellevue The Trane Company LaCrosse First Interstate Bank Milwaukee

Carolina Medical Center Charlotte Kaiser Hospital San Diego

C.U.N.Y. Brooklyn American River College Sacramento

Pasadena City College Pasadena

Northern cities are in bold Source: Calmac Manufacturing Corp241

A VENTURE CAPITALIST’S PERSPECTIVE 177

Key to solving America’s energy problem is reducing

demand for air conditioning,246

then

shifting consumption into the night,

storing energy as ice,

and

enabling air conditioners to use intermittent

wind power.


22. Ban the Installation of Large Daytime Air Conditioners

Large air conditioners should be run at night.

Nighttime Air Conditioning Is a Big Story, Not Well Understood

Nighttime air conditioners make ice or ice slurry at night that is stored in a “thermal storage unit,” a large ice chest. During the day, the ice slurry cools the building, using the existing ductwork, pipes, and fans. Electricity consumption during hot afternoons is reduced by over 90%, and it takes less electricity to make the ice at night because the outside air is cooler.

Credit Suisse moved its air-conditioning load from the day shift to the night shift on its building in New York. On just this one building, Credit Suisse saves 2.15 million kWh every year.101 Commercial building owners regularly report saving over $50,000 a year in electricity.102

Thousands of thermal storage systems are installed across America. From Boston to Seattle, Miami to San Diego, Chicago to Houston, these systems work any-where there is a large summer air-conditioning load. At least one system is installed in Alaska.


Switching air conditioning into the night will enable your state to use large amounts of wind power.

Advantages of Thermal Storage Units

Nighttime air conditioners provide the same comfort as existing air conditioners, and they have several big advantages for your state:

Avoid the need for new power plants. As the previous chart shows, electricity demand is highest in the afternoon and lowest at night. Move air-conditioning load into the middle of the night, and power is freed up on hot summer afternoons, which is usually the driver forcing construction of new power plants and new transmission lines.

Use cheaper power. Power between midnight and 4 a.m. is much cheaper. Demand is low and there is surplus capacity.

Use intermittent wind power. This may be the most important reason to move air-conditioning demand from the day shift to the night shift.

Today’s air conditioners must be powered the instant they are turned on. Nighttime air conditioners can be managed by the electric utility, turned on and off several times during the night with no effect on the building, the ice unneeded until the next day. This makes nighttime air conditioners ideal users of wind power. In the event of an unexpected drop in wind speed, a utility has several hours to find an alternate source of power, something easily done at night but nearly impossible on a hot after-noon.

Since the grid is lightly loaded at night, wind power can

be sent long distances, something impossible on hot afternoons.


Nighttime air conditioners are the long-sought-after way to store the wind’s intermittent power.

Wind power is stored in ice.

Wind Power and Nighttime Air Conditioners

Nighttime air conditioners are the long-sought-after way to store wind’s intermittent nighttime power. Wind energy can be produced at night, stored as ice, and then used during the day.

Since the grid is lightly loaded at night, wind power can be sent long distances, something impossible on hot afternoons when the grid is stretched to its limit.

Switching air conditioning into the night removes enormous demand from the grid on hot afternoons, when the grid is congested. This load shifting—from daytime power to nighttime power—protects the grid by removing demand from hot afternoons, when it is most vulnerable to outages. This is equivalent to spending billions of dollars upgrading the electric grid, but less expensive.103

Nighttime air conditioners make sense anywhere there is predictable demand for air conditioning. They are effective in homes and businesses, in any building needing three or more months of annual air conditioning. A company called Ice Energy makes a system similar to the one used by Credit Suisse, but much smaller and more affordable for large homes and small commercial buildings. Calmac and Baltimore Air Coil make systems for larger commercial buildings.*

The 100-Day Rule

Predictable air conditioning loads exist across America. Many states have buildings using air conditioners over 100 days a year. Homes and businesses in Southern states use a lot of air conditioning. Surprisingly, many commercial buildings in the North run their air conditioners over 100 days per year, even on cool days.

All new air conditioners—commercial and large residential—used over 100 days a year should be nighttime units.

Most new air conditioners should run at night.

* For more information, Google ‘night ice air condition,’ ‘ice bear ppt,’ and ‘CALMAC ice bank

systems.’ Or see www.ice-energy.com, www.baltimoreaircoil.com and www.calmac.com.


Acknowledgements

Many people shared their time and insights in the creation of this book. I would like to specially thank those who provided encouragement, advice, and assistance: Jim Sweeney, Marion O’Leary, Carole and Dale Grace, Warren Muir, Ed Beardsworth, Susan Arrington, John Monti, Bob Gold, Davis Masten, Lynn Pieron, Arthur Rypinski, Amanda Rubio, David Andresen, Meritt Sawyer, Bob Barrett, Carol Smith, Nicholas Parker, Allan Aaron, Daniel Carter, Bob Lafferty, Philip Kithil, Julie Clugage, Abe Sofaer, Jagan Nemani, Jon Brodeur, Jon Foster, James O’Brien, John Mashey, Jonathan Livingston, Carroll Harrington, Bill Keating, Dave Goerz, Shelley Sousa and David Cheng.

I have drawn on the work and research of many organizations and would like to thank: Stanford University, Department of Global Ecology—Carnegie Institution for Science, Precourt Energy Efficiency Center, Woods Institute for the Environment, Earth Policy Institute, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, U.S. Department of Energy, National Academy of Sciences, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, California Energy Commission, California Air Resources Board, Natural Resources Defense Council, Environmental Defense Fund, Berkeley Energy and Resources Collaborative, TUC radio, NASA, European Space Agency, National Center for Atmospheric Research, National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Energy Information Administration, Woods Hole Research Center, Pacific Gas and Electric, Global Climate and Energy Project at Stanford University, Cleantech Group, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, CalCars, Union of Concerned Scientists, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Palo Alto University Rotary, Mineral Acquisition Partners, and Ridgewood Capital.

My thoughts on the topic of climate change and energy policy have been especially influenced by the writings, lectures and speeches of Nicholas Stern, Stephen Schneider, Ken Caldeira, Chris Field, James Hansen, Lester Brown, Fred Krupp, Amory Lovins, Al Gore, Thomas Friedman, Thomas Wenzel, Marc Porat, Richard Wolfson, Stacy Jackson, Arnold Schwarzenegger, David Paterson, Jeffrey Sachs, Dianne Feinstein, Bill Gates, Ted Turner, Robert Swanson, and Fred Pearce.

I would like to thank my daughters, who have provided encouragement for a project that has lasted many years and has stolen thousands of hours from our family. And, most of all, I thank my wife, without whom this book would never have happened.

The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the individuals

or organizations quoted or cited.


Elton Sherwin is a venture capitalist and the Senior Managing Director at Ridgewood Capital, where he invests in private companies. He holds eight patents and sits on the boards of several cleantech companies.

His widely acclaimed first book, The Silicon Valley Way, was translated into Chinese, Japanese, Spanish, and Korean. First published in 1998, it continues to be read and used by entrepreneurs and universities around the world. He frequently speaks at conferences and guest lectures at Stanford University.

Mr. Sherwin earned his B.A. in Political Science from the University of California at Berkeley. The author worked for two decades at IBM and Motorola, where his products earned numerous awards.

Praise for Addicted to Energy

“Insightful”

Vinod Khosla Khosla Ventures

“A creative approach to solving our energy problems that demonstrates the power the private sector can bring to bear on global issues.”

Michael G. Morris Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer

American Electric Power Co.

“Sherwin proposes many straightforward yet innovative policies to deploy technology already developed, but languishing, unused.”

Steve Jurvetson Managing Director, Draper Fisher Jurvetson

“Elton Sherwin’s letter to a fictional governor is in fact a letter to all of us. Sherwin offers a detailed overview of the very real dangers to our planet because of practices that are within our human power to abandon or control. None of us

can do it all, but this book points us to realistic steps we each can take in the direction of a more effective and faithful environmental stewardship.”

Richard J. Mouw President, Fuller Seminary

“I couldn't put it down. It's smart, practical, and proves the point that what is good for the environment is good for the economy.”

David Miller Mayor of Toronto

“Simple solutions for governments, corporations, and individuals”

William F. Miller Former Provost of Stanford University

"Sherwin lays out an action plan tackling the most economically and environmentally attractive options we have. You don't need to agree with everything he says to find enough good ideas to fill the agenda for any

state, county, city, or family."

James Sweeney Director, Precourt Energy Efficiency Center, Stanford University

“A practical cookbook for consumers, industrialists and policy makers.

…Bravo!”

Bill Keating Executive Chairman, Skyline Solar

“A magnificent roadmap for creating jobs, wealth and real progress”

Nicholas Parker Executive Chairman, Cleantech Group

how thermal storage can save the grid

Education