Community Energy Storage- A Key For Renewables and Grid Management

Published February 19, 2016

COMMUNITY ENERGY STORAGE – A KEY FOR RENEWABLES AND GRID MANAGEMENT 

DICKINSON, NORTH DAKOTA – FEBRUARY 18, 2016

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Steffes commends the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA) and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) for their joint effort in the recent launch of the Community Storage initiative.  “It’s exciting to see the environmental community and the electric industry coming together to solve an energy storage problem,” said Paul Steffes, CEO of Steffes. “By aggregating distributed energy technologies and home appliances, electric cooperatives are developing community storage to increase energy efficiency, better integrate renewable energy resources onto the grid, and reduce customers’ monthly electric bill” according to Keith Dennis of NRECA.

This initiative is promoting the use Grid Interactive Water Heaters (GIWH). In a recent report entitled “The Hidden Battery” released by The Brattle Group, electric water heaters were referred to as thermal batteries that are sitting idle across millions of homes in the U.S. Further, these GIWH’s offer an attractive opportunity for improving the reliability, economics, and environmental footprint of the power grid (The Hidden Battery, 2016).

Steffes manufactures a flexible, dispatchable and cost effective energy storage system called Grid-Interactive Electric Thermal Storage (GETS). Steffes GETS devices store renewable wind, solar, and grid power in space and water heaters according to the availability of power and consumer need. Steffes’ GETS deployments have proven that aggregation of fleets of GIWH’s provides flexible, affordable, and effective grid-scale energy storage. 

These “Hidden Batteries”, are distributed energy storage devices with advanced communication and control capability which can be a real game changer in the energy storage and electric industry.

To find out more about Grid Interactive Water Heating, visit: http://www.steffes.com/GETS/

ABOUT STEFFES Steffes is a 40 year old manufacturing company that fabricates and supplies a variety of products to the consumer space and water heating markets. For the past 30 years, Steffes has worked with over 200 utilities from all across North America, helping them implement successful energy and load management programs. Steffes has been awarded several patents for its innovative Grid-Interactive Electric Thermal Storage (GETS) line of products.

Hledik, R., Chang, J. & Lueken, R. (2016).  The Hidden Battery: Opportunities in Electric Water Heating. The Battle Group. Retrieved from: http://www.nreca.coop/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/The-Hidden-Battery-01-25-2016-3.pdf