Faraday Grid Ltd are developing an entirely new technology, the Faraday Exchanger, to address short term volatility and frequency, which when deployed across the electricity grid will create a Faraday Grid, enabling significantly greater integration of renewable energy; increased grid stability; as well as contributing to reduced cost of energy for consumers.

On 12th December 2017, we demonstrated live our prototype of the Faraday Exchanger.

We all need access to affordable and consistent power sources to live our lives. Renewable energy sources being introduced are creating technical issues for our grid affecting power stability and efficiency. The best solution is to update our grid technology to adapt to this change. We have designed a new hardware device for use in our electricity grid to do this.

Help us build our first full prototype of what we've named 'The Faraday Exchanger'

Intro

We all need access to affordable and consistent power sources to live our lives. Policy makers worldwide have mandated to increase levels of renewable energy generation to minimise global environmental impact, however these “clean” energy sources are not controllable in the same way as traditional (i.e. fossil fuel) sources for delivering power.

Maintaining consistent electricity supply relies critically on a stable frequency in the electricity network. Traditional fossil fuels, nuclear and even hydro power are all synchronous generators which create inertia to help maintain this frequency, and are controllable providing frequency response and maintained stability.

New generation from wind and solar is asynchronous and does not have the same inertia, making frequency response difficult. Due to its volatility there is a limit to the amount of this type of energy we can integrate to grids without causing significant instability. Injection of power throughout the grid from renewables can lead to localized voltage and frequency issues. Current grids cannot adequately compensate and are not able to distribute the power elsewhere in the network to be used where it is needed.

The consequences of too much instability are energy loss, added cost, and network failure. It is the issue of volatility the Faraday Exchanger solves for.

Our design - Concept

We’ve designed a hardware device that replaces transformers in existing electricity grids and enables the more volatile and distributed energy sources to generate and dispatch electricity without disrupting the operation of the grid in delivering electricity to the user - you.

We have proved the design concept, and are now seeking to develop our first full prototype for testing. If successful this technology can potentially be used throughout electricity grids worldwide.

The Benefits of the Faraday Exchanger

• Greater integration of renewable energy sources
• Greater network efficiency and reduction of loss between points
• Potential for peer to peer energy sharing

Other grid Solutions are available but not ideal -

1. Solution: Store and use renewable energy like conventional generation using batteries
   Flaw: Battery technology is still too expensive for the wider population and not efficient enough for large networks
2. Solution: Curtail renewable energy generation and integration and continue to rely on coal power
   Flaw: We will never meet targets for reduction in carbon emissions
3. Solution: Adapt our electricity grid design for renewable energy – this is where we come in.

More about the Faraday Exchanger

A Faraday Exchanger is intended to be one of many throughout an electricity network to manage and balance the volatility of e.g. solar and wind energy sources.  When distributed throughout a grid, the ‘Faraday Grid’ will act to provide the inertial response and primary frequency response to maintain stability.

The Faraday Exchanger directly replaces transformers in the existing electricity grid, changing the constraints of our existing grid. It utilizes all the existing poles and wires in our grid. It also removes the need for additional expensive equipment or systems, which makes the grid more fragile.

The implementation of our Faraday Exchanger will create a self-managing power grid. Deployment of Faraday Exchangers into our energy networks will turn our current under-performing grid into a more efficient and responsive "Faraday Grid".

Our Campaign Goals

The next stage of our project is simulation and prototyping. Taking the lessons learnt from our proof of concept prototypes, a dynamic model of our original design will be created in advanced simulation packages. This will allow us to test a number of applications and design versions through design optimization in order to make improvements in both response and efficiency much faster and safely than doing it physically.

Once the design has been completed, the components for our first prototype will be manufactured by local suppliers and assembled for testing and analysis in our lab. With this prototype we will be able to use the results to put together a comprehensive proposal to help us fund the full design and commercialization process.

This process will take us 4 months and cost $250,000. If we do not reach our funding goal, all funds raised will still go directly toward the simulation and prototyping. The remaining funds required will be invested by our team over time as we can afford, which may draw out our development process timeline.

Even if you can't contribute directly please help us get the word out! We would love it if you could share our story with all your friends and family through your favorite communication style. Whether that be Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube or even good old fashioned talking over a coffee, we all need to work towards reducing fossil-fueled power - for our planet, ourselves, and our children.

We have put together some great perks to say thank you for contributing to our project. Whilst we can't give you all a Faraday Exchanger directly as a perk, we certainly hope that one day you will have one in your house connecting your rooftop solar system to the grid. 

- Matt Williams