Energy storage venture lands stimulus grant (Houston)

An infusion of federal stimulus dollars has put a University of Houston collaboration one step closer to developing an energy storage system device that could help the nation brings its power grid into the 21st century.

A $4.2 million grant was awarded to UH by the U.S. Department of Energy, one of 43 projects being funded with $92 million from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act through the DOE’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy.

The funds will go toward the development of a superconducting magnet energy storage system, or SMES, device that could help better integrate the use of key renewable energy sources like wind and solar power. The proposed storage device will use magnetic fields in superconducting coils to store energy with near-zero energy loss and a nearly infinite life cycle.

“There is an issue right now of how to store solar energy when the sun isn’t out and wind energy when the wind is not blowing,” says Venkat Selvamanickam, director of the UH-based Texas Center for Superconductivity and a UH professor. “Right now there is no single solution.”

Meanwhile, a separate stimulus-funded project will use homes in a development in The Woodlands to test other energy storage applications.

Last November, the Department of Energy announced that it was awarding $620 million for projects around the country to demonstrate advanced “smart grid” technologies and integrated systems that will help build a smarter, more efficient, more resilient electrical grid. The 32 demonstration projects included large-scale energy storage, smart meters, distribution and transmission system monitoring devices and other technologies used as models for deploying integrated smart grid systems on a broader scale.

One such project being tested in the Houston area is being overseen by the Austin-based Center for the Commercialization of Electric Technologies. The nonprofit was formed in 2005 to enhance the safety, reliability, security and efficiency of the Texas electric transmission and distribution system through development and commercialization of emerging technologies.

The center received a five-year, $13.5 million grant for a demonstration project aimed at better integrating Texas wind energy resources into the state’s electric transmission, distribution and metering system. Part of the program deals with energy storage, according to Milton Holloway, the center’s president and chief operating officer.

Holloway says the organization is working with Land Tejas Cos. Inc. to outfit several homes in the Discovery at Spring Trails community in The Woodlands with technology to test how a widespread adoption of solar and wind technology will affect the overall electric grid.

"Storage is real important to the longer-term project in dealing with the renewable energy," Holloway says.

Read the full story in the Houston Business Journal.