How the smart grid can help us stop wasting precious renewable energy

Today the journal Electricity Policy is reporting a regulatory victory for wind power owners: the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has decided that the Bonneville Power Administration cannot force wind producers to curtail production in favor of hydroelectric plants.

The new FERC order emphasizes that BPA, which operates in the Pacific Northwest, cannot discriminate against wind energy.

As SmartGridWatch reported earlier, the sad thing is that is that every day, precious renewable energy resources are discarded. Wind turbines get shut down, or water gets spilled over dams without turning turbines — while gas- and coal-fired plants in BPA’s Northwest region continue to run.

Part of the solution is to build more transmission lines to deliver wind power — which is usually in remote locations — to cities where electricity is consumed.

But there’s another, easier part of the solution: Smart meters and the smart grid can enable demand response and energy storage. This can give the grid more flexibility to manage fluctuating generation capacity, thus reducing waste of renewables…

Full story: Stop wasting precious renewable energy! The smart grid can help