Providing electricity at a reasonable price is no easy task, ask any utility executive. And it has become far more difficult with the substantial differences between peak and average load in the grid. But what if electricity demand could somehow be flattened?

And what if the size of much of the electric utility infrastructure could be reduced to levels lower than what it is today to meet the same load? The practical difference is that far less money would be spent on wire and transformers while rewarding consumers with better service and lower cost.

Community energy storage (CES) could be part of the customer price-reliability solution. CES straddles the transmission and distribution domain as well as the customer-side domain of applications. It offers electricity customers reliable electric service at a reasonable price with as little environmental and aesthetic impact as possible.

KEMA’s Larry Dickerman, Rick Fioravanti and Ralph Masiello explore the what and why of community energy storage, moving the technology forward and the customer-utility win in the April 2010 issue of Electric Light & Power.

The article includes excerpts from KEMA’s Utility of the Future leadership guidebook, “The Promise of Energy Storage.” www.kema.com/StorageFuture

Read the full article at: http://www.elp.com/index/display/article-display/0171432712/articles/electric-light-power/volume-88/issue-2/sections/all-together_now_the.html