Going along with yesterday’s post where I talked about XCel Energy’s unique turbine control design and how it’s being used with large battery systems, today’s Wall Street Journal has an article that ties in one more company, GridPoint, Inc., who specializes in software platforms for the power grid. The combination will be working together at the Minnesota project mentioned yesterday, in an effort to not only boost efficiency in the wind-battery-grid system, but also will make the grid able to more easily deal with the varying outputs from clean energy sources. The article is here.
Danotek Motion Tech
The Journal also has an article on another company, Danotek Motion Technology, whose specialty is advanced generation and solid state controls. One product is a wind turbine that promises 98% efficiency at half the weight of other turbines. Because of the mechanical simplicity of the design (as in, no moving parts) the maintenance is expected to be very low, resulting in as much as $1 million in savings over the life of the turbine/generator. This article is here.
If you don’t find all of this quite encouraging, remember that we’re still seeing low oil prices, under $50 per barrel, and investment in clean energy, although slowed along with the rest of the world’s industries, is still attracting new money. When oil prices climb again, as they inevitably will, we can hope that those companies that survive to that time are ready and positioned to make best use of the influx of dollars that always seem to track the price of oil.