Power Grids
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Power transmission: inter-connectors smooth solar volatility?
Can large-scale power transmission smooth renewables’ volatility? To answer this question, this horrible 18MB data-file aggregates 20-years of hour-by-hour solar insolation arriving at four cities in the US. The volatility in year-by-year can be halved by a single inter-connector.
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Power grids: global investment?
Global investment into power networks averaged $280bn per annum in 2015-20, of which two-thirds was for distribution and one-third was for transmission. Amazingly, these numbers step up to $600bn in 2030, >$1trn in the 2040s and can be as large as all primary energy investment.
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Nostromo: thermal energy storage breakthrough?
Nostromo is commercializing a thermal energy storage system, for commercial buildings in hot climates, where AC can comprise 40-70% of total energy use. It scores highly on our patent framework and can be an interesting alternative to lithium batteries.
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Electrical conductivity: energy transition materials?
Electrical conductivity of energy transition materials is tabulated in this data-file. ‘The action’ takes place in the range of 10^-8 to 10^-3 Ohm-meters, including silver in solar cells, copper in renewables and EVs, aluminium transmission lines, batteries, and solar semiconductors.
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FACTS of life: upside for STATCOMs & SVCs?
Wind and solar have so far leaned upon conventional power grids. But larger deployments will increasingly need to produce their own reactive power; controllably, dynamically. Demand for STATCOMs & SVCs may thus rise 30x, to over $25-50bn pa. This 20-page note outlines the opportunity and who benefits?
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FACTS: costs of STATCOMs and SVCs?
Flexible Alternating Current Transmission System components (FACTS) include Static Synchronous Compensators (STATCOMs) and Static VAR Compensators (SVCs). A typical wind project has 0.5 – 1.0 kVAR of FACTS per 1.0 kW of real power capacity. Each kVAR of SVCs and STATCOMs costs $100/kVAR and $150/kVAR respectively.
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Capacitor banks: raising power factors?
Power factor corrections could save 0.5% of global electricity, with $20/ton CO2 abatement costs in normal times, and 30% pure IRRs during energy shortages. They will also be needed to integrate more new energies into power grids. This note outlines the opportunity in capacitor banks, their economics and leading companies.
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Capacitor banks: the economics?
This model captures the economics of power factor correction via installing capacitor banks upstream of inductive loads. A 10% IRR is derived from a system costing $30/kVAR, reducing real power losses by 0.5%, thus saving on 8c/kWh electricity prices (75% of savings), $3.5/kW demand charges (15%) and a $20/ton CO2 price (10%).
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STATCOMs and SVCs: leading companies?
This data file looks for leading companies in STATCOMs and SVCs by aggregating all Western patents that refer in their title, abstract or claims to “STATCOMs”, “Static VAR Compensators”, or similar. ABB (now part of Hitachi), Siemens Energy and GE stand out as Western leaders in a concentrated space, although competition is growing.
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HVDC transmission: leading companies?
The global HVDC market is $10bn pa, and it might typically cost c€100-600 M to connect a large and remote renewables project to the grid or run a small HVDC inter-connector. This data-file reviews the market leaders in HVDC, based on 5,500 patents. A dozen companies stand out, with c$40bn of combined revenues from power…
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