Charging your Electric Car at night

[Paul Bailey]

When the Demand is low, but now Denmark has aother problem — it’s generating too much power from the wind. Currently, Denmark gets about 20% of its total electrical power from wind. On windy days, that percentage can double. The ups and downs of wind power can strain an electricity grid. In western Denmark, the price of electricity can drop to zero on a windy day, leaving utilities scrambling to offload excess power or take a financial hit. To solve this problem, the Danish utility company Dong Energy plans to build a nationwide system to charge electric cars with the surplus wind power.

[Steven Fahey]

The ups and downs of wind power can strain an electricity grid.

Alberta would have this problem, but for caps on the amount of wind energy that can be installed across the province. The cap is based on how much other "flexible" generation is available if the wind power dies out suddenly (or vise-versa).

Denmark could be in a position to try pumping water into, and subsequently draining it from, reservoirs to smooth out the bumps. Ontario used to do this, but for the opposite reason, because they used to run the nukes at near full power all the time, but the nukes don't like speeding up and slowing down. So they would pump water into reservoirs at Welland overnight with the excess. During peak hours, the water was available through hydroelectric turbines to fill in the demand where the nukes couldn't keep up. The system was balanced on the "mean", and the peaks were smoothed out with hydro power.

There is always a loss in energy with every stage of energy conversion, but none of these steps releases "evil" carbon.

[Joe Blake]

I suppose to help promote alternative energy sources the excess power could be used to generate and store hydrogen which could then be sold to the consuming public at a "byproduct price" - ie one that is more than "cost" but less than a commercially produced fuel. I suppose if people were offered fuel at a substantial discount (especially if it were carbon neutral) they'd be prepared to travel a greater distance to buy it.

Or the excess could be used for public transport eg fuel cell buses.

It seems hard to stop at just one solution to this "problem".

Joe