Month: December 2022

Artificial Intelligence in battery energy storage systems can keep the power on 24/7

Posted on by abrahamwien18

By: Carlos Nieto, Global Product Line Manager, Energy Storage at ABB
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When partnered with Artificial Intelligence (AI), the next generation of battery energy storage systems (BESS) will give rise to radical new opportunities in power optimisation and predictive maintenance for all types of mission-critical facilities.

Undeniably, large-scale energy storage is shaping variable generation and supporting changing demand as part of the rapid decarbonisation of the energy sector. But this is just the beginning.

Here, Carlos Nieto, Global Product Line Manager, Energy Storage at ABB, describes the advances in innovation that have brought AI-enabled BESS to the market, and explains how AI has the potential to make renewable assets and storage more reliable and, in turn, more lucrative.

It is no surprise that more industrial and commercial businesses are embracing green practices in a big way. With almost a quarter (24.2%) of global energy use attributed to industry, its rapid decarbonization is a critical component of our net zero future and remains the subject of new sustainable standards and government regulations across the world.

Adding further pressure is an increasingly eco-conscious consumer, demanding the companies they spend with go the extra mile to be as environmentally friendly as possible. This is seen in a recent analysis of the stock market which revealed a direct link between pro-sustainability activity and positive stock prices impact.

More than ever though, going greener isn’t just about ticking the environmental, social, and governance (ESG) boxes, but an issue of energy security. For years, traditional fossil-based systems of energy production and consumption – including oil and gas – have become increasingly expensive.

Add to that the current energy crisis, and businesses now face historic energy price highs not seen since the early 70s and widespread supply issues. For energy-intensive industrial and commercial premises where continuous power supply is often mission critical, this places an even greater onus on sustainability to mitigate the risks of escalating fuel prices and market volatility.

The result is a profound shift in the energy landscape, as more companies move away from the entrenched centrally run energy model and transition to self-generation for a more sustainable and secure future.

Decarbonization, decentralization and digitalization: Benefits and challenges

As with most aspects of the highly complex energy category, this transition is not necessarily a simple one.

To understand why, we must first consider what are widely established as the key drivers of this change – decarbonization, decentralization, and digitalization. While they each bring their own set of benefits, they also bring challenges too.

In terms of decarbonization, global industry continues to make progress toward reducing emissions and, in turn energy costs, by ramping up the pace and scale of renewable investments. But, while this shows progress, the reality is that the inherent variability of wind and solar poses some limitations.

Solar, for example, will only generate electricity in line with how much sunshine there is and will not match the same profile of the electricity that a site is using. Used in silo, companies are left with having to top-up with electricity from the grid or waste any excess generated.

Adding further complexity is the opportunity for decentralization. The decentralized nature of renewable generation holds the potential for power users to not only produce much of the electricity they need locally, but to transition to an independent energy system, such as a microgrid, for the ultimate in self-sufficiency.

One of the major benefits of a microgrid is that it can act as part of the wider grid while also being able to disconnect from it and operate independently, for example, in the event of a blackout. Of course, this presents a huge advantage for mission critical applications, where even a moment’s downtime can entail huge operational and financial implications.

But this also brings challenges. Although a decentralized approach makes for a more resilient and secure system, it must be carefully ‘synced’ to ensure stability and alignment between generation and demand, and the wider central network.

Achieving this and meeting decarbonization goals requires digitalization. This will lead to a shift towards advanced energy management software which allows real-time automated communication and operation of energy systems. Such software will allow businesses to optimize the generation, supply, and storage of renewable generation according to their requirements, the market and other external factors.

In the future, it is predicted that companies could even go beyond self-sufficiency and leverage a lucrative new revenue stream by reselling excess generation, not just back to utilities but even direct to consumers or other businesses.

But for now, we need to focus on what the most suitable framework is for delivering this new layer of next-generation intelligence for the evolving energy system.

Artificial Intelligence can take BESS to a new level of smart operation

The answer to this and many of the other key challenges facing this energy transition lies in BESS.

‘Behind-the-meter’ BESS solutions already form a central part of decarbonization strategies, enabling businesses to store excess energy and redeploy it as needed for seamless renewable integration.

When partnered with an energy management system (EMS), monitoring and diagnostics, the BESS allows operators to optimize power production by leveraging peak shaving, load-lifting, and maximizing self-consumption.

Another big advantage is that these systems can provide critical backup power, preventing potential revenue losses due to production delays and downtime. But there’s more.

Beyond tackling decarbonization, applying Artificial Intelligence (AI) takes BESS to a completely new level of smart operation.

As many operatives will know, energy storage operations can be complex. They typically involve constant monitoring of everything, from the BESS status, solar and wind outputs through to weather conditions and seasonality. Add to that the need to make decisions about when to charge and discharge the BESS in real-time, and the result can be challenging for human operators.

By introducing state-of-the art AI, we can now achieve all of this in real-time, around-the-clock for a much more effective and efficient energy storage operation.

This unique innovation takes a four-pronged approach: data acquisition, prediction, simulation, and optimization. Using advanced machine learning, the system is able to constantly handle, analyze and exploit data.

This data insight is partnered with wider weather, seasonality and market intelligence to forecast future supply and demand expectations. As a final step, a simulation quantifies how closely the predictions resemble the real physical measures to provide further validation.

The result is radical new potential for energy and asset optimization. Through predictive analytics, it will allow commercial and industrial operators to save and distribute self-generated resources more effectively and better prepare for upcoming demand. It can also ensure ‘business as usual’ in the ability to identify and address issues before they escalate and anticipate similar failures or performance constraints.

Greater intelligence is incorporated throughout the system, which allows operators to understand everything from the resting state of charge to the depth of discharge and how these factors can degrade the battery over time. This intelligence makes it easier to predict wear and tear, increases overall lifespan and ultimately the return on the investment for the end user.

There is no doubt that the energy transition is on, as decarbonization, decentralization and digitalization continue to redefine everything we thought we already knew about how to produce and consume energy.

While this brings new complexity for industrial and commercial operators, it also provides an opportunity to reimagine environmental strategy and take advantage of innovation.

With benefits that include significant energy reductions, asset optimization and mission-critical reliability, the transition to AI-enabled BESS is an inevitable and intelligent one.

Major breakthrough in pursuit of nuclear fusion unveiled by US scientists

Posted on by abrahamwien18

By: Tereza Pultarova
View the original article here

A nuclear fusion experiment produced more energy than it consumed.

Scientists at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California briefly ignited nuclear fusion using powerful lasers. (Image credit: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory)

American researchers have achieved a major breakthrough paving the way toward nuclear fusion based energy generation, but major hurdles remain.

Nuclear fusion is an energy-generating reaction that fuses simple atomic nuclei into more complex ones, such as combining atoms of hydrogen into helium. Nuclear fusion takes place in the cores of stars when vast amounts of molecular dust collapse under gravity and create immense amounts of pressure and heat in the nascent stars’ cores. 

For decades, scientists have therefore been chasing nuclear fusion as a holy grail of sustainable energy generation, but have fallen short of achieving it. However, a team from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) in California may have finally made a major leap to creating energy-giving ‘stars’ inside reactors here on Earth. 

A team from LLNL has reportedly managed to achieve fusion ignition at the National Ignition Facility (NIF), according to a statement published Tuesday (Dec. 13). “On Dec. 5, a team at LLNL’s National Ignition Facility (NIF) conducted the first controlled fusion experiment in history to reach this milestone, also known as scientific energy breakeven, meaning it produced more energy from fusion than the laser energy used to drive it,” the statement reads.

The experiment involved bombarding a pencil-eraser-sized pellet of fuel with 192 lasers, causing the pellet to then release more energy than the lasers blasted it with. “LLNL’s experiment surpassed the fusion threshold by delivering 2.05 megajoules (MJ) of energy to the target, resulting in 3.15 MJ of fusion energy output, demonstrating for the first time a most fundamental science basis for inertial fusion energy (IFE),” LLNL’s statement reads. 

Still, that doesn’t mean that fusion power is within grasp, LLNL cautions. “Many advanced science and technology developments are still needed to achieve simple, affordable IFE to power homes and businesses, and [the U.S. Department of Energy] is currently restarting a broad-based, coordinated IFE program in the United States. Combined with private-sector investment, there is a lot of momentum to drive rapid progress toward fusion commercialization,” the statement continues.

Even though this is only a preliminary step towards harnessing fusion power for clean energy, LLNL leaders are hailing the accomplishment as a transformative breakthrough. “Ignition is a first step, a truly monumental one that sets the stage for a transformational decade in high-energy density science and fusion research and I cannot wait to see where it takes us,” said LLNL Director Dr. Kim Budil during Tuesday’s press conference.

“The science and technology challenges on the path to fusion energy are daunting. But making the seemingly impossible possible is when we’re at our very best,” Budil added.”

Such conditions lead up to the ignition of the fusion reaction, which, however, in the current experiment was sustained for only a very short period of time. During the experiment, the energy generated by the fusing atoms surpassed the amount of energy required by the lasers igniting the reaction, a milestone known as net energy gain.

Scientists at the laboratory have conducted several fusion experiments in recent years, which haven’t generated the amount of power needed to claim a major breakthrough. In 2014, the team produced about as much energy as a 60-watt light bulb consumes in five minutes. Last year, they managed to reach a power output of 10 quadrillion watts of power  —  which was about 70% as much energy as consumed by the experiment.

The fact that the latest experiment produced a little more energy than it consumed means that for a brief moment, the reaction must have been able to sustain itself, using its own energy to fuse further hydrogen atoms instead of relying on the heat from the lasers. 

However, the experiment only produced 0.4MJ of net energy gain — or about as much is needed to boil a kettle of water, according to the Guardian.

The breakthrough comes as the world struggles with a global energy crisis caused by Russia’s war against Ukraine while also  striving to find new ways to sustainably cover its energy needs without burning fossil fuels. Fusion energy is not only free from carbon emissions but also from potentially dangerous radioactive waste, which is a dreaded byproduct of nuclear fission. 

The New York Times, however, cautions that while promising, the experiment is only the very first step in a still long journey toward the practical use of nuclear fusion. Lasers efficient enough to launch and sustain nuclear fusion on an industrial scale have not yet been developed, nor has the technology needed to convert the energy released by the reaction into electricity.

The National Ignition Facility, which primarily conducts experiments that enable nuclear weapons testing without actual nuclear explosions, used a fringe method for triggering the fusion reaction.

Most attempts at igniting nuclear fusion involve special reactors known as tokamaks, which are ring-shaped devices holding hydrogen gas. The hydrogen gas inside the tokamak is heated until its electrons split from the atomic nuclei, producing plasma. 

The lasers heated up the cylinder to a temperature of about 5.4 million degrees Fahrenheit, which vaporized the cylinder, producing a burst of X-rays. These X-rays then heated up a small pellet of frozen deuterium and tritium, which are two isotopes of hydrogen. As the core of the pellet heated up, the hydrogen atoms fused into helium in the first glimmer of nuclear fusion.