A software product manager commits to the renewable energy transition
This is the story of my path into the renewable energy space and how I am navigating my career for the next decade.
Addressing the inconvenient truth about intermittent renewable energy
Whether or not you have ever thought about where your electricity comes from, if you are on board with the clean energy transition, you will need to understand more about the inconvenient truth behind the intermittency of solar and wind power.
Long-Duration Energy Storage
It has become much less expensive to build large solar and wind farms to feed significant power into nearby grids, even in remote areas of the planet. But these cleaner energy sources are intermittent so they must be paired with long term energy storage - at grid scale.
My growing interest in Distributed Energy Resources (DER)
I am drawn to DER for multiple reasons. Partly its because updating aging technology systems is what I’ve been doing my whole professional life and this is an opportunity to tackle familiar problems on a global scale - with no shortage of urgency. But part of my fascination is that microgrids and islanding just sound cool! I get interested because our global power story is changing - and change usually means new opportunities!
Solar power, intermittency and energy storage
If you’re curious about trying to go off-grid and supply your own electricity from seemingly attractive renewable energy options like solar panels, you will quickly gain an appreciation for the inherent challenges of intermittency and the value of reliable power from (battery) storage. You will also get closer to understanding how similar those challenges are for millions of people around the world who currently live without access to reliable electricity.
Pumped-storage hydro power is just a giant battery!
What I learned at Cabin Creek near Georgetown Colorado is that pumped-storage hydropower is one of the most efficient, “rechargeable” batteries we have ever created.