New batteries with a greater amount of energy storage could be the solution to the high demand of electricity during peak hours, according to a panel on renewable energy solutions held at Cal State Long Beach Thursday night.
“Renewable Energy Solutions…Batteries Not Included”, which took place at the The Pointe inside the Walter Pyramid, let engineering students discuss renewable energy with industry professionals.
The panel began with Josh Gerber, manager of Advanced Technology Integration at San Diego Gas and Electric.
SDGE is a regulated public utility that provides service to over three million consumers through 1.4 million electric meters and approximately 900,000 gas meters in San Diego and Orange County.
Gerber said that a lot of that energy is managed by the California Independent System Operators, a company that administers the flow of electricity for about 80 percent of the lines of high voltage transmission and long distance in California and a small amount of Nevada.
SDGE is currently working on the “Expedited Storage Project,” which, according to Gerber, is a larger battery four times the size of their current one.
Gerber said that it will be easier to replace less efficient gaps with essentially zero carbon resources by creating bigger energy storages found in this battery.
Jeniffer Didlo, president of Applied Energy Systems Southland and AES Hawaii, said that AES generates electricity for more than three million houses and businesses and is developing plans to substitute existing natural gas power plants in Long Beach, Huntington Beach and Redondo Beach.
Didlo said that consumers are in a time of massive electrical transformation.
“This industry has been completely static for six [or] seven decades and everything is changing,” she said.
She said that the interest of this company is to make a “game changer” in today’s infrastructure.
“The federal government is putting pressure to decarbonize all of our systems,” Didlo said, “they have the authority that they need to do that and they have implemented greenhouse gas reductions, which is significantly important.”
Freshman engineering major Isaac Camarillo said that finding new sources of energy is important for the the future.
“I think it is important to learn about how to save energy because we don’t want to see that climate change is happening due to over using this huge amount of energy,” he said.
According to Didlo, the current consumption of energy is much more than it should be.
“Everybody gets off work, they come home, stand in front of the refrigerator [and] I don’t know why they think it changed from when they left in the morning,” Didlo said, “but they are opening the door with the TV on and what happens is the amount of electricity we are all using as a community sky rockets.”
Didlo said that the community needs to use less electricity to reduce our own personal carbon footprint and stop thinking that energy storage is the single solution.