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Technology Stocks : Vanteck (vrb-cdnx, vttcf)

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From: thaidiamond	4/26/2008 8:02:39 PM
	of 413

"Frankly, I don't get it. Storage seems more important for wind, in the sense you can store the energy overnight when you don't need it and dispatch it during the day. Solar is inherently beneficial during normal peak times, so I can't immediately see how storage will reduce peak load -- unless off-peak daytime solar is stored and dispatched during the highest peaks in the day. I suppose this helps reduce reliance on inefficient, dirty fossil-fuel superpeaking plants. Perhaps it can also smooth out solar output on cloudy days when the sun is obscured many times throughout an afternoon. Even so, I can't see how using storage in this way would be as economical compared to coupling it with wind." The above comment was by Tyler Hamilton on his Clean Tech blog in regards to the recent DOE project to modernize the U.S. electricity grid and which has VRB Power participation: tyler.blogware.com. And that post brought this comment by Anonymous on Fri 25 Apr 2008: It appears to me that what they are doing is focusing on the losses in the feeder network - the low voltage lines (5-25 kV) that carry the power from the substation to the customers neighborhood - where the transformers drop the voltage for delivery. This part of the network is responsible for a large part of the network losses because voltages are relatively low and currents are high. Because the loss is proportional to the square of the current, one can reduce losses significantly by reducing peak load - on that feeder. So by storing energy near the end of the feeder during low load periods and putting it back at peak, total loss will be reduced. I remain suspicious that this is not as good as it looks because the loss in storage devices is generally a lot worse than line loss (Overall system loss is generally less than 15% and I know of no storage system other than big hydro plants that are 85% or better..) I think that a better strategy is to get rid of the peaks by filling the valleys - and using the off peak energy to displace gas at the same locations - at the end of the feeders. The % line loss decreases as load factor improves and is minimized at constant load.

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