Eco Factor: System to store surplus wind generated electricity as ice to cater peak energy demands.
In an effort to reduce peak need for air conditioning on hot California afternoons, a consortium of municipal utilities in California will being retrofitting government offices and commercial properties with systems that use ice made at night using surplus wind power to replace air-conditioning during the afternoon.
The system will reduce fuel consumption by the state utilities by 30 percent and by individual building owners by up to 90 percent. Developed by Ice Energy, the system makes cheap ice overnight when electricity demand is low, using a high-efficiency compressor that freezes 450 gallons of water. In the middle of the day the device shuts down the air conditioner and instead pipes a stream of coolant from the melting block of ice to an evaporator coil installed within the building’s HVAC blower system.
The block of ice will take about six hours to melt completely, which covers the peak afternoon load on the grid. A total of 6000 devices will be installed by 11 small participating utilities at 1500 locations to provide 53MW of energy storage to reduce load on the grid.
Via: CleanTechnica
