Speakers’ Corner: Scottish & Southern Energy, Stewart Reid
In this new series, we asked our speakers 6 questions on Energy Storage, and we will be sharing their answers with you in the weeks to come. This week, we feature the answers from Stewart Reid, Future Networks and Policy Manager at Scottish & Southern Energy.
Some technical innovations in the field of energy storage which have excited me the most would be: Hydrogen, Methenation, Hot water and Phase shifting materials.
Market conditions for large scale deployment of energy storage are right now, hot water is being used to store off peak energy throughout the world already, pump storage schemes already perform. As for “batteries” specifically, conditions will be ready when the economics start to work. Most short time constant batteries are competing directly with Demand Side Management, and this makes the economics tough.
From a Distribution perspective, the most important function that energy storage can provide in the grid currently is storage for peak avoidance both generation and demand driven. In terms of importance, energy storage is already essential!
One topic I would like the Forum delegates to discuss is about smart grid. If Smart Grid is about carbon reduction, energy security and sustainability, then how do we keep it on track?
Currently, my organisations’ experience with energy storage includes a portfolio of ~180MwHrs of energy storage under construction.
Stewart Reid will be speaking at The 6th Energy Storage World Forum about “Examining How A Portfolio of Energy Storage Technologies Will Be Key For Future Networks Embedded Applications”, on Tuesday, 23 April 2013.
If you want to know more about this and other topics directly from end users of energy storage technologies join us at one of these annual events: The Energy Storage World Forum (Grid Scale Applications), or The Residential Energy Storage Forum, or one of our Training Courses.