On the Use of Energy Storage Technologies for Regulation Services in Electric Power Systems with Significant Penetration of Wind Energy

Transcription

1 On the Use of Energy Storage Technologies for Regulation Services in Electric Power Systems with Significant Penetration of Wind Energy Bo Yang 1, Yuri Makarov 1, John Desteese 1, Vilayanur Viswanathan 1, Preben Nyeng 2, Bart McManus 3, and John Pease 3 1 Pacific Northwest National Laboratory 902 Battelle Boulevard, Richland, WA 99354, U.S. Phone: + (509) s:bo.yang@pnl.gov, yuri.makarov@pnl.gov john.desteese@pnl.gov vilayanur.viswanathan@pnl.gov 2 Technical University of Denmark Elektrovej, bldg. 325, DK-2800 Kgs. Lyngby, Denmark Phone: + (45) pny@elektro.dtu.dk 3 Bonneville Power Administration P.O. Box 491Vancouver, Washington 98666, U.S.A Phone: +(360) s: bamcmanus@bpa.gov jhpease@bpa.gov Keywords Energy Storage, Regulation, Flywheel Energy Storage, Pumped Hydro Electric Power Plant, Battery Energy Storage Abstract-- Energy produced by intermittent renewable resources is sharply increasing in the United States. At high penetration levels, volatility of wind power production could cause additional problems for the power system balancing functions such as regulation. This paper reports some partial results of a project work, recently conducted by the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) for Bonneville Power Administration (BPA). The project proposes to mitigate additional intermittency with the help of Wide Area Energy Management System (WAEMS) that would provide a two-way simultaneous regulation service for the BPA and California ISO systems by using a large energy storage facility. The paper evaluates several utility-scale energy storage technology options for their usage as regulation resources. The regulation service requires a participating resource to quickly vary its power output following the rapidly and frequently changing regulation signal. Several energy storage options have been analyzed based on thirteen selection criteria. The evaluation process resulted in the selection of flywheels, pumped hydro electric power (or conventional hydro electric power) plant and sodium sulfur or nickel cadmium batteries as candidate technologies for the WAEMS project. A cost benefit analysis should be conducted to narrow the choice to one technology. The work has been funded under the Bonneville Power Administration Technology Innovations contract # BPA /PNNL California ISO and Beacon Power Corporation contributed in kind to this project. The Pacific Northwest National Laboratory is operated by Battelle for the U.S. Department of Energy under Contract DE-AC05-76RL /08/$ IEEE I. INTRODUCTION The Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) expects to have up to 6,300 MW of wind generation capacity installed in its service area by The California Independent System Operator Corporation (CAISO) targets ~6,700 MW of wind and ~1,800 MW of solar generation capacity available in its system by the same year. At high penetration levels, volatility of wind power production could cause additional problems for the power system balancing functions such as load following and regulation [1-3]. Regulation implies the provision of generation and load response capability, including capacity, energy, and maneuverability, which responds to automatic controls issued by the Balancing Authority (in other words, by the Control Area operator). The regulation objective is to follow minute-to-minute differences between the control area generation and demand [4]. CAISO purchases a minimum ±350 MW of regulation capacity for every operating hour. The maximum cap is ±600 MW, which may be exceeded in case of multiple observed violations of the control performance standard. The average price of 1 MW up and down regulation capacity is $18/MW (2006). BPA uses about ±175 MW of regulation capacity, and its ancillary service rates are energy based (hourly scheduling, system control and dispatch mills/kwh, regulation and frequency response mills/kwh, and spinning operating reserves mills/kwh) [5]. As a result, the annual cost of regulation in these two control areas significantly exceeds 100 million dollars. Studies show that, with the expected increasing penetration of wind power resources, the year 2010 regulation needs will noticeably increase in the BPA and CAISO service areas [1-3]. Correspondingly, more regulation capacity will be needed in these systems.

2 This paper reports some partial results of a project work, recently conducted by the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) for BPA [5]. The project proposes to mitigate additional intermittency caused by wind generators with the help of Wide Area Energy Management System (WAEMS) that would provide a two-way simultaneous regulation service for the BPA and CAISO systems with the help of a large energy storage facility. The proposed WAEMS will minimize the regulation capacity requirements in these two neighboring areas by exchanging intermittent energy between the participating control areas and the use of energy storage resources. This effect is achieved through so called ACE 2 sharing approach. Our estimate shows that ACE sharing could save up to 30% of the required regulation capacity in these systems. Additionally, because the energy storage is a fast responsive resource, it could help to save an additional 40% of regulation requirement in California by competing with slow responsive thermal units in the regulation market [6, 7]. The suggested WAEMS design consists of two resources: flywheel energy storage and pumped storage (or conventional hydro electric power) see Figure 1. wheel and hydro unit should equal total MW request from both control areas. Flywheel provides regulation down (or regulation up) service. Hydro unit provides regulation up (or regulation down) service. Hydro unit is used to maintain the lowest (or the highest) possible state of charge on the flywheel. The hydro power plant output will be kept as close as practical to the most efficient operating point. Dynamic schedules are used to distribute the flywheel s and hydro s outputs among the control areas. The paper evaluates several utility-scale energy storage technology options against acceptance criteria developed for the WAEMS project. These options are flywheels; superconductive magnetic energy storage (SMES); pumped hydrostorage; compressed air energy storage (CAES); super capacitors, several electrochemical battery types, and demand-side control. Section II introduces selection criteria in detail. Section III evaluates the various energy storage technologies. Section IV analyzes advanced battery systems used as fast regulation resource. Section V summarizes previous analysis and concludes the paper. COI BPA Regulation Signal BPA BPA Dynamic Dynamic Schedule Schedule ISO ISO Dynamic Dynamic Schedule Schedule CAISO CAISO Regulation Regulation Signal Signal Fig.1 Suggested WAEMS design Controller Hydro 1 Flywheel 2 Vertical configuration, i.e. integration through the BPA and CAISO EMS systems is suggested. BPA s and CAISO conventional regulation unit signals will be used to control the Wide Area EMS. Dynamic schedules 3 will be used to incorporate the new regulation resource into the AGC 4 systems. Control algorithms have been be designed to mimic behavior of a conventional unit of regulation and to coordinate the control functions of participating resources. Total MW output of fly- 2 Abbreviation ACE stands for the Area Control Error. The Area Control Error is the difference between scheduled and actual electrical generation within a control area on the power grid, taking frequency bias into account. 3 Dynamic schedule is a telemetry reading or value that is updated in real time and used as a schedule in the Automatic Generation Control/Area Control Error equation and the integrated value of which is treated as a schedule. 4 AGC is a generation equipment that automatically responds to signals from the EMS control in real time to control the power output of electric generators within a prescribed area in response to a change in system frequency, tie line loading, or the relation of these to each other, so as to maintain the target system frequency and/or the established interchange with other areas within the predetermined limits. II. SELECTION CRITERIA Thirteen selection criteria have been adopted to compare different energy storage technologies. The key criteria include power and energy capability, response speed, cyclic capability and ramping capability. The competing technologies could also have more credits for high energy density, low maintenance, long life and low cost. Grid level demonstrations, ease of siting and ability to provide extra services are also considered. The ability to support fast response regulation service also helps to identify suitable technologies. The following selection criteria were applied: Ability to frequently change power output (or store and deliver energy) over a wide MW range, at least several times over a 10-minute interval, preferably, several times over 1 minute. Ramp rate (the technology should be able to respond to control signals, i.e., AGC signals, changing every 4 seconds) Response delay time (the lesser, the better) Duration (able to provide rated power for 15 up to 60 minutes) Resource potential to be scaled to achieve needed energy and capacity Life time Maturity of the technology Industrial use experience for regulation/frequency control Cost Energy efficiency and power density Environmental impacts Ability to provide other ancillary services Ease of siting. III. ENERGY STORAGE SYSTEM SELECTION There are twelve energy storage /power control technolo-

3 gies that have been evaluated against the selection criteria given in Section II. Table 1 compares their characteristics. Much more detailed comparison can be found in [5]. Table 1 Energy storage and power control technologies summary Energy Storage Advantage Disadvantage Flywheels High power capacity; short Low energy density access time; long life time; low maintenance effort; high efficiency; small environmental impact. SMES High power capacity; short access time; long life time; high efficiency Low energy density; high production cost; potential adverse health impact Pumped Storage or Conventional Hydro CAES Super Capacitors Lead-Acid Batteries NaS Batteries Flow Batteries Li-ion Batteries Ni-Cd Batteries Metal Air Batteries capacity; moderate access time; long life time; capacity; long life time; High efficiency; long life cycle High power capacity; low volume energy density; low capital cost; long life time capacity; high energy density; high efficiency; long life time capacity; long life time Short access time; high energy density; high efficiency Short access time; high energy density; high efficiency Very high energy density Special site requirements; adverse impact on environment; moderate efficiency Low efficiency; adverse environmental impact; low efficiency; difficulty of siting Low energy density; few power system applications Low efficiency; potential adverse environmental impact Production cost; safety concerns Low energy density; low efficiency No large energy market application so far because of technical and cost issues Cycling and safety control required; environmental concerns Few rechargeable batteries available Demand Control Fast response Economical cost Three energy storage technologies were identified as potential candidates for the WAEMS project. The rest are eliminated from consideration for this project due to the reasons provided below. A. Selected Options Flywheel Energy Storage is an established modular technology that has a proven potential to be used on the utilityscale level. Flywheel energy storage is a green facility that has long cycle life, insensitive to the depth of discharge (DOD). Also high peak power capacity without overheating concerns, high round trip energy efficiency, rapid response, ability to provide other ancillary services because of power electronic interface with the grid and ability to site wherever needed are strong positive values of the technology. A 100-kW, 25-kWh, scale-power Smart Energy Matrix (SEM) unit comprised of Beacon Power flywheels, ancillary electronics and communications and control software has been built, installed and is currently operating on the California Independent System Operator grid at PG&E s DUIT facility in San Ramon, California [8]. Pumped or conventional hydro-power plant is the most developed and practiced utility storage and/or power control option. Although a conventional hydro power plant is not an energy storage facility, it remains to be a very perspective regulation resource and is a selected candidate technology for this project. The major difficulties are siting and environmental impacts of the two requisite reservoirs. However, in the western U.S.A., pumped storage could possibly exploit and become an adjunct to existing hydro electric storage assets, such the Columbia River system and other locations where hydro electric power facilities are established. As a possible feasible alternative for the pump hydro electric storage, a conventional hydro electric power plant could provide regulation service addressed by this project. The practical use of hydro electric power resources for wide-area regulation most likely depends on the availability of one of the existing hydropower plants for this service. Pumped hydro electric power plants can provide both power regulation and energy storage services. Examples can be found in California, where some pumped storage power plants provide both AGC regulation and intraday energy storage capabilities. In the regulation mode, pumped storage units are following an AGC signal by changing their MW output around the preferred operating points. In this mode, the plants may be capable of providing the maximum ramp rate almost equal to their full capacity in 1 minute. This would be a sufficiently fast response for the purposes of this project. In this respect, the pumped energy storage can be used similarly to the use of conventional hydropower plants for regulation. A transition from the pumping to generation mode takes minutes, and of course, this would not be an acceptable response time for the regulation purposes. The energy storage mode could be used to provide intraday services for the wind generation projects and for BPA and CAISO, such as help in following the schedules, optimizing the daily production schedules and addressing the over-generation problem. Sodium-sulfur (NaS) batteries have been employed in power systems for more than 20 projects in Japan and world wide since the 1980s [9]. Compared with other leading battery technologies, NaS batteries have attractive energy density (over four times that of lead-acid battery) and low capital cost. They also have a long cycle capability (2500 plus cycles upon reasonable depth of discharge) and millisecond response with full charge and discharge, which have a good potential for regulation application [9]. The technology is highly efficient by having a high cell direct current (DC) efficiency (up to 89%), no self discharge, minimal maintenance and long shell life (up to 15 years). NaS batteries are made of abundant low cost materials that are suitable for high volume mass production. Modular fabrication yields potentially high power and energy capability, which also reduces the construction intervals. The sodium-sulfur batteries have demonstrated their applicability in projects concerning power quality, emergency power supply and stabilization of renewable power resources from kw to MW level on utility substations. For example,

4 they are used in a substation update demonstration project at Charleston, Virginia, by American Electric Power (AEP) [10]. The batteries could generate up to 1.2 megawatt power for up to seven hours, easing the strain of overloaded substation. AEP was also expecting to a delivery of 6-megawatt NaS battery systems in Nickel-cadmium (Ni-Cd) batteries The nickel-cadmium battery is another electrochemical battery type. Compared with the lead-acid battery, the Ni-Cd battery has higher energy density and is more temperature tolerant. For the purpose of regulation, it has the important feature of being tolerant to deep discharges, and storage during the discharged state. Drawbacks are higher costs and the need for advanced battery monitoring during charge and discharge. An application of Ni-Cd batteries is the Golden Valley Electric Association BESS (Battery energy storage system) project in Alaska [11]. This system is designed to provide 26 MW for 15 minutes or a full 40 MW for 7 minutes. B. Eliminated Options The following options were eliminated from further immediate consideration because they exhibit various disadvantages or technological immaturity despite possessing potential future advantages that may warrant reinvestigation over the longer term. This is particularly true of several evolving energy storage options that, with both further technical development and accumulated operating experience, may be eventually preferable to the above noted conventional choices. Superconducting magnetic energy storage (SMES). In SMES, the energy is stored in the magnetic field of a superconducting coil. The coil must be kept at a very low temperature to maintain its superconducting capability. Advantages include an extremely short response time, as well as high efficiency (the superconducting coil itself is theoretically lossless, but the conversion from AC to DC and back implies losses, as does the continuous cooling of the coil). Applications of SMES are able to provide high power, very fast, but usually for a very short time (seconds). It has scaling potential to about 1 MWh capacity without serious siting restrictions, but the exposure of the surroundings to the magnetic field must be considered. Besides, the immaturity of the large-scale SMES systems capable of bulk storage is a major disadvantage. Compressed air energy storage (CAES ). This is an established energy storage technology in grid operation since the late 1970s. With this technology, energy is stored mechanically by compressing air. When the air is expanded again, energy is released to the grid. If the heat that develops during compression is conserved, this mechanical process is theoretically 100% efficient. However, in large-scale systems, that is not likely to be the case and combined with the losses occurring during the conversion from electrical to mechanical energy and back, the round-trip efficiency is very low. Other disadvantages include slow response and fewer environmentally acceptable siting opportunities. Demand-side management (DSM). Demand-side management offers benefits similar to those of other energy storage technologies using end-use thermal storage and other means of load reduction or deferral. While demand-side management has been applied successfully for over 25 years, it was not selected as an option in the present study. Current utility DSM program shows that it does not routinely provide the amount or quality of load control equivalent to the value offered by dispatchable energy storage options, although it shows promise for doing so in the future. Therefore, demand-side management is considered to be still an immature tool for immediate usage. It has been demonstrated in the Olympic Peninsula Project [12] by PNNL that a DSM system with the help of grid friendly appliances (GFA) shows advantages on mitigation wind power penetration. The DSM system along with GFA would be promising to be used for regulation control. The potentials of DSM would be further explored in future work. Super-capacitors. Superior to most conventional battery systems in speed of response and cycle life, super-capacitors are a developing technology that is not yet applicable for the storage requirements of electric utility-scale operations. Like traditional dielectric capacitors, the super-capacitor (or ultra-capacitor) stores energy by physically separating negative and positive charges. The energy density of supercapacitors is, however, much higher than that of traditional capacitors, as a result of a modified internal capacitor structure. The fast charge and discharge time (fractions of seconds) known from traditional capacitors is partially maintained (few seconds), as well as the very long cycle life (potentially 100,000s of cycles). Super-capacitors are a rapidly developing technology and a strong research effort is continuously improving the energy density. Current applications typically take place in combination with batteries or other storage or power supplies, in situations where a low average, but high pulse, power is needed. An example is cars where the use of super-capacitors can decrease the needed battery size or in buses, where the capacitors store braking energy and release it during acceleration. Advanced batteries. Many of the advanced battery types are currently under development to improve the power and energy density characteristics, cycle life and costs, and/or to address specific problems inherently present in some designs. Battery technologies, including lead-acid, nickel metal hydride lithium-ion and flow batteries, are re-evaluated as well. The reasons they are eliminated from this is lack of power system applications and limited cyclic capability. IV. DISCUSSION ON BATTERY TECHNOLOGIES The goal of energy storage devices in the WAEMS application includes responding to rapidly and frequently changing regulation signals. This type of requirement significantly limits applicability of many battery technologies. The cyclic duty of battery and depth of discharge influence the useful battery life. Assume that the battery system could supply 10 MW of power to the grid for 1 minutes (0.17 MWh), and that, for each hour, the battery would be charged

5 and discharged 15 times. For one year service, the battery system should be able to cycle 131,400 times. Figure 2 gives an estimate of the total numbers of cycles that the battery technologies can withstand plotted against the depth of charge. The total number of cycles is reducing along with depth of discharge increasing. To be able to satisfy the cyclic requirements for the regulation service as assumed above, the battery should work at low DOD. Hence, the total required battery energy capacity should be increased based on this consideration. For instance, a 9.58 MWh capacity would be needed for the lead-acid battery The paper compares principal features of twelve generically distinguishable storage technologies based on the WAEMS requirements and thirteen developed selection criteria. The analyzed characteristics include the ease of siting, environmental impacts, cyclic capability, life cycle, power capacity, energy capacity, response speed, duration, self discharging characteristic, maintenance cost, storage, capacity cost, weight, round trip energy efficiency, and existing industrial experience and applications. The battery storage technologies were additionally analyzed based on their cycling capability as a function of the degree of discharge (DOD). The cyclic duty of a battery and required DOD influence the battery life. The selection process resulted in selecting flywheels, pumped hydro power plant (or conventional hydro electric power plant) and sodium-sulfur (or nickel cadmium) batteries for a subsequent detailed evaluation in a future study, including a cost benefit analysis VI. REFERENCES: ZnBr Vanadium Redox Regenesis Lead acid gelled Ni-Cd Consol Adv Ni-MH Pesaran Li-Ion Pesaran Adv Li-Ion Pesaran NaS NGK Fig 2. Cyclic capability of different battery technologies The capital costs per kwh of competing battery technology are available in reference [5]. The same source also gives the energy density information. The capital cost and energy density for competing battery technologies are compared in Figure 3. The vertical axis is given by logarithmic. Because of incomplete information, costs for several flow batteries are missing. Weight, Tons Pesaran Pb-acid gelled Pesaran Li-ion Battery weight, cost for 10 MW, 1 min discharge, 15 cycles per hour Ni-MH Li-Ion Advanced Na-S Ni-Cd ZnBr Vanadium Redox Zebra assume 4% DOD Regenesis, assume 4% DOD Battery Type Capacitors ZnBr assume 6% DOD Fig 3. Cost and weight comparison for battery technologies V. CONCLUSION Cost, $M Weight Cost [1] C. Loutan and D. Hawkins, "Integration of Renewable Resources: Transmission and Operating Issues and Recommendations for Integrating Renewable Resources on the California ISO-Controlled Grid," CAISO Report November [2] Y. V. Makarov, C. Loutan, J. Ma, P. d. Mello, and S. Lu, "Evaluating Impacts of Wind Generation on Regulation and Load Following Requirements for Integrating Intermittent Resources," in WINDPOWER 2008 Houston, TX, June 1-4, [3] Y. V. Makarov, S. Lu, B. McManus, and J. Pease, "The Future Impact of Wind on BPA Power System Ancillary Services," in WINDPOWER 2008 Houston, TX, June 1-4, [4] "NERC Operating Manual," June 15, [5] Y. V. Makarov, B. Yang, J. DeSteese, S. Lu, C. Miller, P. Nyeng, J. Ma, D. Hammerstorm, and V. Viswanathan, "Wide-Area Energy Storage and Management System to Balance Intermittent Resources in the Bonneville Power Administration and California ISO Control Areas," PNNL Project Report December [6] Sep, "Cost comparison for a 20 MW flywheel-based frequency regulation power plant," KEMA project: BPCC [7] Y. V. Makarov and J. H. Eto, "Assessing the Value of Regulation Resources Based on Their Time Response Characteristics," CERTS Report December [8] M. Lazarewicz and J. Arseneaux, "Status of pilot projects using flywheels for frequency regulation," in IEEE, Power engineering society general meeting, 2006, June 18-22, [9] M. Kamibayashi and K. Tanaka, "Recent sodium sulfur battery applications," in Transmission and distribution conference and exposition, 2001 Atlanta, GA, USA, Oct 28- Nov 02, [10] B. Norris, J. Newmiller, and G. Peek, "NAS Battery Demonstration at American Electric Power-A Study for the DOE Energy Storage Program," Sandia National Laboratories March [11] S. Eckroad, "Golden valley cooperatvie project in Alaska - 40 MW Nickel - Cadmium battery," Electric power research institute, Sacramento, CA Feb 24, [12] D. Hammerstrom, J. Brous, G. Horst, T. Oliver, C. Eustis, O. Jarvegren, R. Pratt, R. Kajfasz, P. Michie, W. Marek, and R. Munson, "Pacific Northwest GridWise Testbed Demonstration Projects; Part II. Grid Friendly Appliance Project," PNNL Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, WA VII. BIOGRAPHIES Bo Yang (S 03) received the M.S. from Shanghai Jiaotong University, Shanghai, China, in 2003 and Ph.D. from Arizona State University in She is currently a research scientist at the Pacific

6 Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, WA. Her research interests are in the area of power system dynamics and control. Yuri V. Makarov received his M. Sc. degree in Computers and Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the Leningrad Polytechnic Institute (now St. Petersburg State Technical University), Russia. From 1990 to 1997 he was an Associate Professor at the Department of Electrical Power Systems and Networks in the same University. From 1993 to 1998 he conducted research at the University of Newcastle, University of Sydney, Australia, and Howard University, USA. From 1998 to 2000 he worked at the Transmission Planning Department, Southern Company Services, Inc., Birmingham, Alabama as a Senior Engineer. From 2001 to 2005 he occupied a senior engineering position at the California Independent System Operator, Folsom, California. Now he works for the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, WA. His activities are around various theoretical and applied aspects of power system analysis, planning and control. He participated in many projects concerning power system transmission planning (power flow, stability, reliability, optimization, etc.) and operations (control performance criteria, quality, regulation, impacts of intermittent resources, etc.). He was a member of the California Energy Commission Methods Group developing the Renewable Portfolio Standard for California; a member of the Advisory Committee for the EPRI/CEC project developing short-term and long-term wind generation forecasting algorithms, and a voting member of the NERC Resources Subcommittees and NERC Wind Generation Task Force. For his role in the NERC August 14th Blackout Investigation Team, he received a Certificate of Recognition signed by the US Secretary of Energy and the Minister of Natural Resources, Canada. John DeSteese began his engineering career with the Westinghouse Electric Company following graduation from the University of London. He has also worked for TRW, Incorporated and the McDonnell Douglas Corporation helping to develop reliable remote power sources for terrestrial and aerospace applications. Since 1973 he has held positions of increasing seniority at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory where he is currently a Chief Engineer. His professional experience covers a broad range including advanced energy conversion systems research and development, innovation of power system concepts, and planning and management of system development programs. He has also conducted studies of distributed generation and power quality and reliability, and has made substantial contributions in the evaluation of power grid vulnerability issues including the significance of information provided by power grid dynamic behavior. Vilayanur Viswanathan is a Senior Research Engineer at Battelle Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Energy Science and Technology Division. He received a PhD in Chemical and Electrochemical Engineering from Rutgers University (NJ), and a BS in Chemical Engineering from The Indian Institute of Technology (Madras). Dr. Viswanathan has over 14 years of experience in batteries, fuel cells and capacitor technology. He recently managed a program on lithium polymer battery development. He has investigated safety issues for lithium polymer batteries using accelerated rate calorimetry, thermodynamic analysis and heat transfer modeling. He recently worked on a project investigating design and safety issues related with multi-cell cylindrical li-ion battery packs with series parallel configurations. He has significant experience with aqueous based battery systems such as Ni-Cd, Ni-MH and Ag-Zn batteries. He recently investigated the causes of failure of Silver-Zinc battery systems used by the US Navy, recommended various options for preventing failure, and developed the protocol for testing cells with various membranes. He has fabricated battery electrodes, and solid oxide fuel cell components such as solid electrolytes & cathodes. He fabricated and optimized electrodes using novel fiber substrates, investigated recombination kinetics in sealed Ni-Cd cells and leadacid batteries, modeled impedance spectra of single cells and batteries, and optimized iron electrode design for use in Ni-Fe electric vehicle batteries. He used impedance spectroscopy to gain a unique perspective on determination of state of health of batteries. He also designed battery/charger systems for a range of products that required light-weight, compact batteries. He designed and built fuel cell systems (including balance of plant) to test larger planar solid oxide fuel cells. He also has extensive experience with balance of plant design and testing of watts PEM fuel cells, and is an expert on solving various issues such as flooding, diffusional limitations, and CO poisoning that plague PEM fuel cells. His current research areas in PEM fuel cells include water management and novel fabrication methods. Dr. Viswanathan is a member of AICHE and The Electrochemical Society. Preben Nyeng received his M. Sc. in Engineering from the Technical University of Denmark in From 2000 to 2006 he was a development engineer at Logos Control Systems, Denmark. He is currently pursuing the PhD degree at the Center for Electric Technology at the Technical University of Denmark. From August to December 2007 he was a visiting researcher at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, Washington. Bart McManus began working for Bonneville Power Administration in 1994 after getting his BSEE from University of Washington. He programmed the Automatic generation control system for BPA until 2002, at which time he move to Technical Operations where he took charge of the AGC system and general Balancing Authority Area Operations for BPA. He has been working on wind integration issues for BPA since 2005, most recently finding the amount of in-hour balancing required for the wind in the BPA Balancing Authority Area as well as the planned wind through John Pease started with Bonneville Power Administration in 1988 as a system protection engineer from 500kV to 69kV. From 1992 to 1998 he was with the BPA Laboratories, working with innovative protection and control schemes at 500kV. In 2001 he became a project manager in the Renewable Energy group for BPA Power, evaluating 26 wind projects as part of BPA's 1000 MW RFP. In 2005 he became the manager of BPA's Wind Forecasting Network, the first forecast system to predict hourly wind energy from real time to seven days in advance. In 2006, John became a project manager for Technology Confirmation and Innovation (TC/I) group at BPA, evaluating 26 wind, wave, tidal and energy storage projects as part of a 2007 RFP, managing 10 projects selected for funding. In 2008 he is managing five projects; one is the PNNL Wind Regulation & Load Following project for the integration of 3000 MW wind by 2009, and the Wide Area Energy Storage system that will assist balancing the BPA and California ISO control areas in real time. Recent achievements: Chairman, Portland Chapter of the IEEE Power Engineering Society, 1999 to 2002; IEEE-USA Professional Achievement Award in Education: BSEE University of Wyoming (1988), MBA, Portland State University (2001), Professional Engineer, State of Washington.