Continuing our Smart Grid Series, we zoom in on reliability — because building more solar and wind doesn’t matter if the grid itself can’t stay stable. We’ve seen what happens when it fails: blackouts in Spain and Portugal earlier this year, near misses in Texas, rolling outages in California.
My guest is David Hebert, VP of Global Sales & Business Strategy at Wärtsilä Energy Storage. Wärtsilä is a 190-year-old company that now builds integrated storage systems combining hardware + software to keep grids reliable — even in moments of stress.
We dive into:
- Why grid operators need fast, flexible tools beyond just generation
- Synthetic inertia: batteries mimicking the stabilizing effect of spinning turbines
- How storage can act like an “airbag” — catching a wobble before it cascades into blackout
- Real-world deployments: from the UK’s Blackhillock project to island microgrids in Bonaire & Graciosa
- Reliability + resilience: sectionalizing grids after hurricanes, blackstart capability, and non-wires alternatives
- Enabling more renewables by smoothing intermittency and curtailment issues
- Why batteries are the “Swiss Army knife” of the grid: frequency regulation, voltage support, time-shifting, backup power
- Cost, customer adoption, and how utilities are (finally) moving past reflexive resistance
Links & resources:
- Wärtsilä Energy Storage— https://www.wartsila.com/energy
- Everybody in the Pool: all episodes & newsletter — https://www.everybodyinthepool.com/
- Become a paid subscriber for an ad-free feed (and my eternal gratitude) — https://plus.acast.com/s/everybody-in-the-pool
What you can do & what’s next:
- Send me your thoughts: in@everybodyinthepool.com — have you lived through blackouts? Tried a microgrid?
- Share this episode with a friend who loves geeking out about grid reliability.
Smart Grid Series lineup:
- E101: Safe, long-duration flow batteries with XL Batteries
- E102 (this episode): Grid “airbags” & synthetic inertia with Wärtsilä
- E103 (next): A rechargeable zinc sponge anode that solves dendrites — Enzinc
Together, we can get this done.
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