Fall 2008 to present
Mechanical Engineering, Cockrell School of Engineering
Research Topic: Optimizing Electrochemical Energy Storage for Grid-tied Renewables
If energy storage were available on the electric grid, it could offer significant benefits. These benefits could include improvements in the utilization of existing transmission, distribution and generation assets, emissions reductions from on-peak electricity generation, and support for significantly increased penetrations of renewable energy sources, especially wind power. Because wind generation typically has highly variable output, the increasing wind penetration in some states has raised awareness of a need for additional system flexibility in the future, which can be provided by energy storage, among other sources. Despite these economic and environmental benefits, largely because of persistently high capital costs, energy storage has yet to see widespread adoption in the United States.
My past research has examined the role that large-scale energy storage, such as that potentially provided by compressed air energy storage (CAES) or redox flow batteries, could play as part of a future generation mix for an electric utility. Moving forward, my research continues to focus on pathways to facilitating the integration of energy storage in the electric grid, looking at a future electric vehicle fleet as a potential source of low-cost, high-availability storage. There currently exist many challenges to widespread vehicle-to-grid (V2G) adoption, but with increases in the battery electric vehicle (BEV) fleet size, continuing improvements in battery technology and a growing public charging infrastructure, BEVs might be able to provide many of the benefits of large-scale energy storage without high capital costs.
