ESA Chairman Heads Up Panel Session on Energy Storage at Wind Energy Institute
ESA's Board Chair, Brad Roberts, moderated a panel discussion on "New Storage Technologies: Are they finally Here?" at the 2008 Wind Energy Institute in Austin, Texas on February 19,2008. This annual meeting is sponsored by the University of Texas Law School and is designed to help the legal community better understand the rapid growth of the wind energy market in Texas. Current projects show that installed wind energy in Texas could reach 25,000 MW's in the next 10-15 years.
The Storage discussion panel included Dr. Michael Nakhamkin of Energy Storage Power Corporation and Mark Wilby of Shell WindEnergy. Dr. Nakhamkin's presentation covered the design of Compressed Air Energy Storage (CAES) systems and Mr. Wilby presented a proposed wind farm in the Texas Panhandle that will be combined with a CAES system for a total capacity of 3,000 MW. Mr. Roberts did an overview of the total electricity storage market and presented details on distributed storage systems using battery systems and flywheels to support the utility grid. The audience of 400 attendees asked questions about storage and gained a better understanding of how storage could benefit the grow of wind power.
