Energy Storage Research Center Opens in Birmingham
Energy officials from around the country gathered Tuesday on the campus of Southern Research (SR), a Birmingham nonprofit specializing in science and technology, to celebrate the opening of the state’s first Energy Storage Research Center.
In his opening remarks, Corey Tyree, SR’s senior director of energy and environment, told the crowd of company executives, engineers and scientists that the center represents a new era.
“For 100 years in the electricity industry, the model was basically ‘make, move, sell electricity,’” Tyree said. “With the advent of energy storage, you can ‘make, move, hold, then sell electricity.’ Seems like not a big deal. It’s a big deal. It’s a really big deal.”
He said energy storage is the “key to unlocking” the potential of renewable power such as wind and solar. Being able to store that energy ensures it will be available to meet customer demand, even on a cloudy day with no breeze.
The research center will enable technology vendors and users to test out large-scale energy storage applications in an effort to improve the process and make it more cost-effective. The facility contains big, expensive batteries that can connect to Birmingham’s power grid, which, according to Tyree, is key for research.
“This center’s about doing due diligence and making sure this technology works before it ends up on the real grid,” he said.
Tyree said the facility, which cost several million dollars, is a collaborative effort, funded by groups including Southern Company, the U.S. Department of Energy, the Electric Power Research Institute and the state of Alabama.
‘Fairyland’ recalls a girl’s life with her poet father in pre-AIDS San Francisco
Alysia Abbott's memoir about growing up in 1970s San Francisco with her gay, single father, has been adapted into a film directed by Andrew Durham and produced by Sofia Coppola.
Los Angeles: Spaghetti Cumbia, a band born from cultural fusion
Photographers and storytellers Karla Gachet and Ivan Kashinsky document cumbia music in Colombia, Mexico, Ecuador, Peru, Argentina and the United States.
What are your holiday shopping plans? NPR wants to hear from you
Is this the season of cutbacks or splurges? As we prepare to cover holiday shopping and deals, NPR wants to hear from you, whatever your plans may be.
Laufey was an ‘odd fish’ in native Iceland. Now she’s a jazz-pop star
The Grammy Award-winning singer and musician had rigorous classical training. Now she's making music that crosses genres: "I've been inspired by Golden Age films, the va-va-voom of it all," she says.
What does Montreal sound like?
World Cafe is kicking off its latest Sense of Place series with a playlist that offers a glimpse of Montreal's lively music scene.
Dozens of Bob Ross paintings will be auctioned to help public TV after funding cuts
Thirty of Ross' trademark landscapes will be sold at a series of auctions starting in November. He painted many of them live on The Joy of Painting, which started airing on PBS in the 1980s.
