As the world moves towards a more renewable and decentralised energy system, energy storage is becoming increasingly important.
Energy storage technologies allow us to store energy when it’s available and release it when it’s needed, providing a range of benefits for the grid, businesses, and households.
One of the primary reasons efficient energy storage is crucial for the green transition is the need to manage variable energy supply. Renewable energy sources like wind and solar are intermittent and don’t provide a consistent energy supply. Energy storage can help smooth out these fluctuations by storing excess energy when it''s available and releasing it when needed.
As many renewable energy sources are becoming cheaper and cheaper, storing them and using them later can be very cost-efficient for society.
Energy storage can also provide backup power during emergencies and help reduce peak demand, which occurs when many people use electricity simultaneously.
By storing excess energy during off-peak hours and releasing it during peak hours, energy storage can help prevent blackouts and reduce the need for expensive infrastructure upgrades or reliance on fossil fuels.
Improving energy storage infrastructure and overcoming the issues posed by the intermittent renewable energy supply is essential to achieve decarbonisation targets and can drastically help eliminate our fossil fuel dependence.
Thermal energy storage (TES) is an innovative technology that offers a promising solution for storing and releasing heat energy. It allows us to leverage renewable energy sources such as wind and solar by utilising the energy they generate to heat a “thermal battery” that can store the heat for several hours or even days.
This stored energy can be used to generate electricity when needed, especially during periods when renewable energy sources are not readily available. This approach is a game-changer for renewable energy as it enables us to use it when it’s most cost-effective, which typically occurs during sunny or windy periods.
As a result, the overall cost of electricity can be reduced, and the grid’s stability can be improved.
One of the main benefits of TES is that it offers a simple approach to energy storage. Thermal batteries are typically constructed from abundant materials that are cheap to assemble and maintain and can operate for many years.
For instance, a lot of TES companies, such as Antora Energy, use solid carbon, which is extremely cheap and highly accessible. The existing supply chain of solid carbon is over 30 million tons a year, 50 times the available quantity of lithium.
The technology is also highly scalable, meaning it can be adapted to suit various applications, from large-scale power plants to smaller residential buildings.
Pumped hydroelectric storage (PHS) is currently one of the most widely used forms of energy storage. PHS involves pumping water from a lower reservoir to a higher one during low electricity demand, such as at night, using excess electricity generated from renewable sources.
During periods of high demand for electricity, the stored water is released to the lower reservoir which generates electricity by turning turbines. This process enables excess electrical capacity to be stored efficiently and inexpensively, allowing it to be released when it is most needed.
According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), the total installed capacity of PHS worldwide was around 160 GW in 2021, making it the most widely deployed grid-scale storage technology.
Indeed, PHS accounts for over 90% of the world''s electricity storage, at approximately 8,500 GWh in 2020.
The majority of PHS plants currently in operation provide daily balancing, ensuring a steady supply of electricity during peak demand. However, there is potential for PHS to be used in larger-scale applications, such as supporting the integration of intermittent renewable energy sources into the grid.
The United States has the largest capacity of PHS, with many plants scattered across the country. The world’s largest PHS plant, the Bath County Pumped Storage Station, is located in Virginia, with a capacity of more than 3 GW, a 24 gigawatt-hour storage capacity, the equivalent of one year of electricity use for 6,000 homes.
Despite its benefits, PHS does have some limitations, including the need for suitable topography and access to large amounts of water. Nevertheless, PHS remains a key technology for energy storage and has enormous potential to help accelerate the transition to a more sustainable energy future.
The production of green hydrogen through electrolysis powered by renewable energy sources like solar and wind offers a promising solution for long-term energy storage.
Hydrogen produced from this process can be stored and converted back to electricity when needed, providing balancing power for the grid. Most importantly, it can be burned when required without releasing any GHG emissions.
One of the significant advantages of hydrogen is its ability to be stored for months without losing power through discharge, making it an attractive option for long-term energy storage. In comparison, lithium-ion batteries can only store energy for a couple of hours.
On the other hand, the "power-to-gas-to-power" process required by green hydrogen has a high energy storage capacity, but it is less efficient and more expensive than other storage technologies.
Indeed, converting the power to gas and back to power has an efficiency of 18%-46%, according to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. To put that into perspective, pumped-storage hydropower has an efficiency closer to 70%-85%
Despite being a promising option for energy storage, the logistics and infrastructure to scale up its production are not yet developed enough.
Bringing production costs down and at a larger scale could provide a significant step towards reducing carbon dioxide emissions and even creating a circular economy.
Many projects are already in the works as more industry leaders, such as John Ketchum at NextEra Energy Resources, see green hydrogen as a "really long-term solution." NextEra is already working on 50 potential green hydrogen projects.
In the EU, many projects have been implemented, such as the Green Skills for Hydrogen, an EU-backed skill conversion and training program aimed at equipping workers with the necessary tools and skills to adapt to the new technology.
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