The future of wind energy: Seamlessly powering urban areas

The future of wind energy is closely tied with tomorrow's urban power sources, as cities look toward renewable energy resources. Skyscrapers in Brooklyn, Portland and other major urban areas nationwide are beginning to feature small rooftop turbine installations, according to ScienceLine. While there are an estimated 155,000 small turbines under 100 kilowatts in the U.S., their current output is only enough to power 1,840 average American homes, according to the source.

Planners are using small turbines in urban areas to change consumer attitudes toward renewable energy, and they must work collaboratively with energy companies if they want to have a bigger impact on energy generation.

The future of wind energy: Analytics for urban adoption

While significant wind power developments are planned for offshore locations in the next decade, there is a unique set of challenges associated with driving advancements in urban wind power technologies.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) has set an aggressive target of 10 percent renewable energy penetration by 2020, according to Windtrust. However, the natural fluctuations in wind power create issues of consistency for energy and utility companies. Meeting base load requirements with wind is impossible without storage solutions, such as batteries or pumped hydro.

Many wind producers are already using analytics to maximize output, forecast availability and perform predictive maintenance. However, if urban communities are going to rely on wind as a power source, advanced analytics must also be applied to address the challenges of availability and storage. Utility Dive writes that in order to meet Clean Power Plan targets of 32 percent reduction in carbon emissions by 2030, an "aggressive" approach is necessary. Current analytics-driven improvements in grid integration have positioned wind to overtake hydropower as the most abundant and cost-effective source of renewable energy in the U.S., according to the source. Wind's remarkable growth in cost-efficiency and integration in recent years is partly attributable to real-time analytics applications to maximize integration into the grid.

As urban communities integrate more wind power, solar and other renewable energy resources, energy and utility companies will be able to develop flexible grids. While technological advancements in wind power are continually increasing output efficiency, the application of streaming and predictive analytics can ensure that renewable resources are used first.

Looking forward: Combining storage and wind energy analytics

Globally, energy storage technologies are drastically expanding. Technavio predicts that the off-grid storage market will increase at a compound annual growth rate of 7.5 percent through 2019. For urban communities to truly maximize available wind energy resources and other renewables, large-scale investment in storage technologies can lead to a cleaner grid. Maximizing the potential of storage technologies to pull power into the grid at times of peak demand will require new forms of energy analytics to combine storage and wind power technologies.

Energy Excelerator recently launched a $2.1 million pilot study to research the efficacy of commercial-scale energy storage and renewables, per SmartGridNews. While this case study focuses on solar power, Hawaiian Electric's recent steps to connect a 36-kilowatt energy storage system directly to their grid could shine some light on the future of wind energy in population-dense areas like Honolulu. With the use of sophisticated analytics applications, Hawaiian Electric will gain the ability to respond in real-time to spikes in energy demand and pull solar-generated energy directly from their stored resources.

To meet IEA and local regulations for adoption of renewable energy resources in urban environments, energy and utility companies will need to take an in-depth dive into new forms of analytics. Big data initiatives of the future will focus on increasing the operational efficiency of distributed grids that include both wind power and large-scale energy storage systems. Recent reports from CleanTechnica indicate that cutting-edge energy storage technologies, including underground storage systems, have the potential to solve the inevitable transition to renewable resources in the United States.

By integrating sophisticated analytics programs and storage technologies, the future of wind powered cities looks a lot brighter.

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