Does the future lie in hybrid energy systems?

Speaking ahead of his address to the All-Energy Australia Exhibition & Conference in October, CSIRO Fellow Dr Sukhvinder Badwal has stated that hybrid energy systems stand to benefit a wide range of industries and applications.

A solid-state electrochemist with more than 35 years’ research experience in fuel cells, membrane technologies, gas sensors and renewable energy systems using hydrogen, Dr Badwal will be speaking at the conference as part of the panel session ‘Hybrid Energy Systems: Hybridisation of renewable energy systems’. He claims that hybrid systems have “many advantages above and beyond cost”, offering “tailored and substantial improvements in performance, response time, load following capability and cost reduction over individual technologies.”

New battery chemistries, compressed air, fuel cells and hydrogen, hydrogen-enriched natural gas and supercapacitors are among the new technologies showing promise, according to Dr Badwal. “The challenge lies in finding the right solution for the application,” he said.

Addressing this challenge is part of Dr Badwal’s role at CSIRO’s newly established Centre for Hybrid Energy Systems, which is expected to open later this year. Dr Badwal said the centre was established to “identify energy-efficient and cost-effective energy generation and storage technologies to meet varying end-user power requirements, investigate challenges for integration with renewable energy and work with industry to provide customised sustainable energy solutions”.

Dr Badwal will be one of several experts speaking on the latest in renewables at All-Energy Australia, to be held from 7–8 October at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre. For more information on the event, visit http://www.all-energy.com.au/en/.