The Associated Press article "Switch to solar in Southwest limited by issues of logistics," Sept. 19, linked a suppression of renewable energy development in New Mexico and other states to an aging electric transmission system.
The oil-, coal- and nuclear-powered electric utility companies want time and federal permits to assimilate renewable energy companies into their holdings as well as state government, eminent-domain power to take land to construct their transmission lines.
However, the New York Battery Energy and Storage Technology consortium, including General Electric Co., is prepared to manufacture energy storage devices. The research, development and manufacturing of these devices, such as the Durathon energy storage battery, will enable electrical generating facilities to energize them for transport on existing rail and roads to urban and rural markets for purchase and use at customer sites.
NY-BEST submitted ideas to the New York Energy Highway task force advocating: "One significant solution is community energy storage opportunities in the form of microgrids...which provide an integrated energy system, or network consisting of distributed generation resources and multiple electrical loads operating as a single, autonomous grid, may be in the near term, the most economic way to solve many of the issues..." by residential, industrial and commercial buildings. The ECG Consulting Group surveyed some consortium companies concluding New York companies could manufacture utility-scale energy storage devices, customer-sited energy storage devices, and electric-vehicle battery packs.
New York government and Schenectady County have collaborated with GE Global Research Center to enhance research and development of commercial energy storage devices. Appropriate assistance by the Capital District Regional Planning Commission and the Capital Region Economic Development Council can develop our foreign trade zones with the manufacture and export of these energy storage devices to Africa and South America to enhance rural agriculture development with sustainable food processing for hungry and starving people.
MICHAEL McGLYNN
Watervliet