Wednesday, June 23, 2010

What to do about renewable energy overflow?

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I just came across an article at The Telegraph titled “Firms paid to shut down wind farms when the wind is blowing”. It illustrates very well recent discussions in which I participated, about the best manner to use and distribute renewable energy.

One of the really interesting threads is on LinkedIn (http://bit.ly/9uuDlw) in the Fuel Cell & Hydrogen group. To make a long story short, the opinion that I support is that the energy should be fed to the Grid as first priority, since that is at present the most efficient and economical manner to distribute it. But at times of overproduction, when the Grid cannot handle additional supply, it should be used to produce fuel – liquid fuel – which is the next alternative to energy distribution (and storage). This ties also very well to the theme of my recent posts (Renewable Energy and Hydrogen).