Storage: the next generation

Why build a new power plant when the technology exists to store excess megawatts until needed?

Ontario is moving ahead with a natural-gas-fired generator on the Portlands, with plans to start building this summer. Local opposition is growing louder. Meanwhile, engineer Greg Allen of Sustainable EDGE Ltd., a Toronto engineering and design firm, has been quietly promoting an alternative he believes is cheaper, cleaner and faster to build.

One reason natural gas is attractive to the McGuinty government is that it is a natural complement to nuclear energy, which maintains a steady flow 24 hours a day. Natural-gas generators can accommodate fluctuations in electrical demand, filling in the daily peaks that nuclear reactors don’t address.

The government’s urgency in building the new generator is the result of warnings that the city could face rolling blackouts in the summer of 2008 without an increase in capacity during peak hours.

But there is another, cleaner way to handle peak demands. In the same way that natural-gas generators dovetail with nuclear reactors, the natural complements to wind and solar power are storage systems, or batteries, that collect the power of the sun and wind and deliver it to us even on calm, still evenings.

Toronto Star