Why Your Next Renewable System Should be Built Around Energy Storage

摘要

In the renewable energy industry, there has been much discussion about how to convert variable resources such as wind and solar into consistent and continuous energy similar to the electricity consumers are accustomed to enjoying from the utility. Meanwhile, more frequent instances of extreme weather such as tsunamis, heat waves, hurricanes and ice storms are causing sustained blackouts and giving residents and businesses pause: what if the grid isn't as reliable as we once assumed? Or consider another possibility: systems designed around installation and production incentives such as net metering (running the meter backwards and selling back to the utility) can have their entire economic rationale altered if those incentives change, and policies invariably do change.