【精英翻譯】的部落格

Batteries That Make Use of Solar Power, Even in the Dark黑暗中 仍能善用太陽能的電池

精英翻譯社轉自: http://paper.udn.com/udnpaper/POH0067/306926/web/

文／Stanley Reed

譯／王麗娟

A new cash crop has sprung up on Nicholas Beatty’s enchanting farm near Hartwell. Rows of gray solar panels range over about 25 acres, turning sunlight into electricity, as dog-size muntjac deer hop by.

The panels, trouble-free money earners that feed into the electric grid, are no longer unusual on farms in Britain or other countries. What’s new in Beatty’s field is a hulking 40-foot-long shipping container.

尼古拉斯·畢提位於哈特威爾附近的迷人農場，出現了一批新的現金作物。一排排灰色的太陽能板散布在約25英畝的土地上，把陽光轉化成電力。大小如狗的麂鹿從一旁躍過。

這些太陽能板在英國或其他國家，不再是農場上的不尋常景觀，它們是毫不麻煩的賺錢機器，將電力注入電網。而畢提田地中新奇的東西，是1個笨重龐大的40呎貨櫃。

Stacked inside, in what look like drawers, are about 200 lithium-ion cells that make up a battery large enough to store a substantial portion of the electricity the solar farm puts out.

The battery and its software give Beatty an advantage over other solar panel farmers. Power prices in Britain and elsewhere rise and fall, sometimes strikingly, during the day and over the year, depending on the supply and demand. By storing power in the battery, Beatty can feed it into the grid when prices are high. “The battery effectively takes power off the line when there is too much and puts it on when there is too little,” he said.

堆放在裡面，宛如一個個抽屜的，是約莫200個鋰離子電池，它們組合而成的電池，大到足可儲存這座太陽能場生產的大部分電力。

電池和它的軟體讓畢提比其他太陽能場主人享有更大優勢。英國和其他地方的電價視供需而定，可能一天或一年內起起伏伏，有時幅度驚人。將電力儲存到電池，畢提可在電價高時將它送進電網。他說：「電池可在電力太多時有效斷電，電力太少時再連線輸送。」

Beatty said the battery, which costs about 825,000 pounds ($1 million), could increase revenue for his solar farm by as much as 200,000 pounds a year. In addition to making more by timing his delivery to the grid, he said he planned to enter an auction to become a standby source of power to compensate for unexpected drops in the grid.

Beatty is one of many entrepreneurs and businesses trying to play the fast-shifting electric power landscape. The global effort to combat climate change is forcing what had been an old-line business to evolve. Polluting, coal-fired power stations are closing, while clean energy sources like wind and solar are growing fast.

畢提說，成本約82萬5000英鎊（約1百萬美元）的電池，每年最多可為他的太陽能場增加20萬英鎊收入。除了藉掌握送電時間增加收入，他說，他還計畫加入拍賣行列，成為備用電力來源，在電網電量意外下降時補其不足。

畢提是試圖在快速變遷的電力業中尋求發展的許多企業家和商家之一。全球對付氣候變遷的努力正迫使這個老行業進化。造成汙染的燃煤火力發電廠一一關閉，而風力和太陽能這類乾淨能源則成長快速。

While renewable energy sources have the huge advantage of not emitting the gases blamed for climate change, they can be tricky for a grid operator to rely on, not least because their output is dependent on wind and sunlight. In addition, the power they produce is essentially free, which puts downward pressure on prices.

“The growing use of renewables is creating an unstable energy system,” said David Hill, managing director of Open Energi, a British company that helps industrial companies save money by timing and otherwise managing their energy use. “What everyone is trading on now is that there is a value in flexibility.”

Batteries are one way of achieving that flexibility.

雖然再生能源因為不會排放導致氣候變遷的氣體而享有巨大優勢，電網運營商想依賴它們仍頗棘手，不僅僅因為它們的生產完全仰賴風和陽光而已。此外，由於它們生產的電力基本上沒有成本，電價恐有下跌壓力。

英國公司「開放能源」總經理大衛．希爾說：「再生能源的使用增加，正造就一套不穩定的能源系統。現在每人交易的著眼，都是彈性這項價值。」「開放能源」是協助工業公司透過時間的掌握或其他方式管理能源使用，以達到省錢目的公司。