Navigated to E102: An airbag for the electrical grid

E102: An airbag for the electrical grid

September 11
38 mins

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Episode Description

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:



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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