John Whitney
Categorizing Hybrid Renewable Energy Systems
By John Whitney, AIA
What circumstances make hybrid power systems reasonable, economical, and/or highly desirable?
This is a work in progress, but I would like to achieve more clarity in my thinking about hybrid renewable energy systems. Here’s what I’ve got so far (I’m looking for feedback):
By their very nature, hybrid energy systems are developed to solve a problem with a stand-alone generation system. The problem can be situational (remote location makes access to conventional fuels and power grid difficult or impossible) or it can be a system-specific shortcoming (i.e., the intermittent nature of some renewable generation technologies). Additional stimulus for their use may include environmental (desire to lessen impact of conventional generation plant), or economical (use of multiple energy sources to drive a shared generation technology and transmission access) motives. (more…)
