An alternative energy company chimes in on how its industry can help mitigate power loss and relieve pressure on the grid. I cite it not to tout the stock (I have no position in it and am not even considering it) but simply to look at how the industry is responding to the blackout.
Press Release Source: Energy Conversion Devices, Inc.
Alternative Energy Key to Avoiding Repeat of Blackout 2003 -ECD Ovonics Leads The Way in Providing Alternative Energy Solutions - Renewable Sources of Energy Offer Safeguard Against Power Loss
Wednesday September 3, 10:39 am ET
ROCHESTER HILLS, Mich., Sept. 3 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Energy Conversion Devices, Inc. (ECD Ovonics) (Nasdaq: ENER - News), the pioneer in hydrogen-based energy solutions, plays a major role in advancing the nation's future in alternative energy resources. Blackout 2003 demonstrated the vulnerabilities in a central generating plant, above ground poles and wire transmission, and distribution grids. The flaws of the current grid model include little or no provision for alternative and renewable energy solutions that are available today to improve the reliability of the power system. ECD Ovonics takes a strong stance in its mission to provide real technology solutions to mitigate an economic disaster such as Blackout 2003. What is important is for the government and key industry participants to focus on creating a roadmap to reduce the nation's dependency on the power grid.
"There is no economic or technological reason for traffic lights to fail, for diesel generators to be the only option during an emergency, and for Cleveland's entire water system to be disabled," said James Metzger, ECD Ovonics' chief operating officer. "It's a matter of reducing the nation's sole dependence on the grid. Spending billions of dollars to add more capacity to the grid will not prevent future blackouts and huge financial losses again in the future. There are renewable energy options that can be put in place quickly to mitigate disasters like the blackout and, eventually, remove significant pressure from the grid."
Hundreds of billions of dollars will be required to adequately update the current power grid model; yet employing alternative and renewable energy solutions available today would cost-effectively reduce the capital required for those upgrades. Both the technology and the products exist to provide networks of "stand-alone" solutions that can serve as uninterrupted power supplies or as primary sources of power. The renewables industry has solutions for many of these problems.
The problems could easily be addressed if the roofs on homes and commercial industrial buildings were using aesthetically pleasing shingles and integrated photovoltaic roofing as well as batteries and solid hydrogen storage systems so that one can have an autonomous distributed power system independent of any grid interruption. Leading the way with such solutions is ECD Ovonics, which with its partners has a comprehensive portfolio of renewable Ovonic energy generation and energy storage technology -- available today.
One of the best real-world examples has to be solar power. It can be stored in nickel metal hydride (NiMH) batteries. The use of solar and batteries is a great example of an integrated solution available today, which can be used to operate traffic lights, water and gas pumps, or bridge tolls. United Solar Ovonic LLC (Ovonic Solar), a wholly owned subsidiary of ECD Ovonics, is the world leader in thin-film amorphous silicon solar technology and an example of a company that is providing these types of solutions today.
ECD Ovonics has been a pioneer and major proponent of renewable energy and the hydrogen economy vision since the company's founding in 1960, and has developed critical technologies needed to enable the commercialization of alternative energy solutions that will move the nation closer to energy independence, such as hybrid and hydrogen powered vehicles. The hydrogen economy will become a reality over the next few decades as the world makes a shift from dependence on fossil fuels to the utilization of renewables, in particular hydrogen, thus resulting in a cleaner environment from an inexhaustible range of sources. Based on company founder, president and CEO Stanford Ovshinsky's inventions, ECD Ovonics holds the basic patents on the processes and technologies that enabled the development of the needed and numerous hydrogen based technologies and systems.
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