While we face many problems, at this moment we face only one truly global existential threat: Human-induced global climate change. As the world collectively passes through the different stages of grief, mourning the loss of our hydrocarbon fueled civilization, we are starting to accept that a low-carbon life is not only worth living, but potentially quite exciting as we get to re-imagine how we do things in sustainable ways. Thus, the genesis of innovation is a major problem.

The electric grid is going through this transformation. The grid must drastically reduce its carbon footprint, and in order to do this renewable energy needs to replace fossil fuels. In fact, the transformation has been staggering. The EIA reports that in 2015 roughly 13% of the electricity consumed in the US came from renewable sources. Out of this 7% were non-hydro renewable resources. Renewable energy portfolios in different states, such as New York and California, aim to push the usage of renewable energy beyond the 50% mark in the next twenty years. At the same time the US has started an aggressive retirement program of power plants that do not comply with environmental, efficiency, and economic standards. In 2015, 18GW of generating capacity was removed from the grid. More than 80% of this retired generating capacity was coal power plants. Another 5GW coal-based generating capacity is slated to be retired in 2016. While this is fantastic for the environment, it also makes it technically difficult to maintain a reliable and profitable electric grid.

Why? Deep de-carbonization of the electric grid has serious challenges (and opportunities). Renewable energy, by its very nature, is completely dependent on instantaneous local resources; namely the weather. Solar panel output is dependent on cloud-cover, incident angle of the sun, transparency of the air, and temperature of the solar panel itself (as solar panel temperature increases its efficiency decreases). Similarly, wind energy is dependent on wind speed, wind direction, and air density. It is possible to predict weather in macro form, but not with detail, leading to uncertain renewable generating capacity and uncertain economic performance of a renewable investment. In order to compensate for this uncertainty, engineers need to oversize the renewable energy system, install backup generation (peaking plants), and invest in battery energy storage. Sounds expensive? It is.

The renewable energy implementation not only needs to compensate for uncertainty in supply; there are also serious variations and uncertainties with electricity demand, and these are principally weather dependent. On average, in the US, approximately 30% to 75% of peak electricity load is associated with air-conditioning. On a hot summer, peak demand soars due to increased air conditioning usage. But hot days also affect supply. Gas turbine engines and solar panel power outputs drop as a function of higher air temperature.

The present solution is to operate peaking plants that run on natural gas. These peaking plants are maintained at idle, ready to provide power if an imbalance between demand and supply materializes. Peaking plants are not environmentally friendly since most of the time they burn fuel to stay warm, not to produce power. Moreover, electricity produced from peaking plants is very expensive because you pay a lot in capital equipment and get very little energy out of them.  

These limitations are significant technical, environmental, and economic barriers to reaching renewable energy, emission reductions, and sustainability goals.

I invented the BeCool system and founded Be Power Tech with a mission to provide a significant solution to grid de-carbonization barriers. BeCool is an air conditioner that produces electricity. The system consumes natural gas (non-renewable, I know but hear me out). The system is designed to be a direct replacement of existing commercial building air conditioning systems.

The practical impact of this technology, is the removal of the variable air conditioning electric demand from the grid and the reduction of baseload electricity in buildings. In doing so, the cost and uncertainty of grid-scale renewable energy infrastructure is reduced because the size of energy storage systems can be reduced and the dispatch of peaking plants can be reduced.

Even though the BeCool system uses natural gas, it reduces greenhouse gas emissions. This is because the system operates at much higher efficiency than conventional power plants. With the BeCool system, electricity is produced at the site of use (distributed power). In other words, there are no transmission and distribution losses of electricity. Additionally, the BeCool system generates electricity electrochemically at efficiencies that exceed that of traditional power plants. The heat generated from the electricity generation is used to drive an ultra-efficient air conditioning process based on changing the concentration of a salt solution to create air dehumidification and cooling. In this way, the entire natural gas fed to the system is utilized for a useful purpose (electricity supply and air conditioning). Since an electrochemical process is used, no toxic pollutants are emitted.

Wide scale deployment of our products would dramatically reduce the cost and technical complexity associated with increasing the renewable energy portfolio. It also directly reduces carbon emissions by generating electricity at an efficiency higher than the grid and much higher than peaking plants.

To learn more visit www.bepowertech.com