June 11, 2009 (FinancialWire) — Stephen C. Byrd has been named president and chief executive officer for Energy Storage & Power, LLC, a joint venture New Jersey-based utility Public Service Enterprise Group (NYSE: PEG) and Michael Nakhamkin, a compressed air energy storage technology expert and the holder of patents on the second generation of CAES technology and related power augmentation technology.
Nakhamkin is chief technology officer of the joint venture. Byrd, has been senior vice president of finance, business development and M&A for PSEG, as well as president of PSEG Energy Holdings. Prior to joining PSEG, he had been executive director of the global energy and utilities group at Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS).
In his new role, Byrd will oversee ES&P's efforts to bring the second generation compressed air energy storage technology and related power augmentation to the market.
In related moves, Randall Mehrberg, executive vice president of strategy and development for PSEG, will become chairman of ES&P and president of PSEG Energy Holdings.
Large-scale energy storage is needed if renewable generation sources are to become an large source of the nation's power supply. Many of the major alternative sources, including wind and solar power, can produce widely varying output throughout a given day or from one day to the next. Power companies need to offer a steady, reliable base supply as well as increased peaking load during certain parts of the day.
The only way to make many alternative sources compatible with the needs of utilities is if the utilities can find ways to store large amounts of energy for later use. That way, a supply that often comes in sporadically from alternative sources can be doled out to customers smoothly and predictably.
ES&P said that its patented technology stores off-peak energy, in the form of compressed air in underground or above ground reservoirs, and releases this energy during peak hours. CAES can be used for load management of intermittent renewable energy resources, to increase the load factor of base load plants, or as a stand-alone intermediate generation source for capturing energy arbitrage, capacity payments and ancillary services.
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