Directory:Storage

Lasted edited by Andrew Munsey, updated on June 15, 2016 at 12:47 am.

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Overview

The Importance of Energy Storage - Basic overview. Energy storage involves methods and apparatus used to store heating, cooling, or power. In district energy applications these encompass a wide variety of applications, but all are designed to be recharged on a cyclical basis (usually daily, occasionally seasonally). (Directory:Energy Business Reports July 27, 2007)

Energy Storage Nears Its Day in the Sun - Energy storage is an unglamorous pillar of an expected revolution to clean up the world's energy supply but will soon vie for investors attention with more alluring sources of energy like solar panels, manufacturers say. (Reuters Feb. 25, 2008)

Contents

1:

Overview
2:

Products
3:

Resources
4:

See also

Products

Batteries

See Directory:Batteries (separate page)

Directory:Batteries > Directory:Lithium Ion Batteries > - Panasonic has announced plans to create 'home batteries.' They are lithium-ion batteries large enough to power a house for a week, making energy sources such as solar and wind power more feasible. Also, you can buy energy when it is cheapest, and don't need to worry about power outages anymore. (Nexus404 Dec. 24, 2009)

PG&E Demonstrates Vehicle-to-Grid Technology - Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G) technology allows for the bi-directional sharing of electricity between Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles (PHEVs), and the electric power grid. The technology turns each vehicle into a power storage system, increasing power reliability and the amount of renewable energy available to the grid during peak power usage. (Green Car Congress Apr. 9, 2007)

Capacitors

See Directory:Capacitors (separate page)

Compressed Air

Latest / Template: 43: Directory:Geothermal / Directory:Engines > Directory:Massive Yet Tiny (MYT) Engine > Angel Labs eyes geothermal for MYT Engine application - The MYT™ Engine as a pump/compressor purportedly exceeds existing pumps/compressors in providing massive pressure, volume, and flow -- all in one unit. This attribute makes it ideal for geothermal energy, among many other such applications. The Tesla Corporation, LLC has drilled a well on which to test this out. (PESN Mar. 11, 2010) (Comments)

Utah-Based Company Digging Underground Compressed Air Batteries - Underground caverns may have never been seen as energy containers, but a Utah-based private equity group promises to use them filled with compressed air to generate electricity the classic way – by spinning a turbine.The desert patch from Utah hides a massive salt deposit a mile underground that the company will use to store the energy and create a giant subterranean battery. (The Green Optimistic Feb. 9, 2010)

Directory:Storage > Hydraulic Storage using Coastal Salt Domes - Hydraulic and air-pressure based power stations respond more easily to sudden and extreme fluctuations in demand for power. Salt domes that are located very deep in the earth's bedrock and that measure several miles in vertical height by up to a mile in diameter would be suitable to store pressurized natural gas or compressed air. (Energy Pulse Oct. 9, 2009)

Image:Compressed-air-energy-storage 95x95.jpg

New Jersey Utility Invests $20 Million Into Compressed Air Energy Storage - PSEG announced that it would be investing $20 million over the next three years into developing underground compressed-air storage systems for wind turbines. Currently there are two Compressed Air Energy Storage (CAES) systems operating in the world, one in Alabama and the other in Huntorf, Germany. (TreeHugger Aug. 29, 2008)

Energy Storage and Power Corporation - ESPC developed a Compressed Air Energy Storage (CAES) plant based on Dry Air Injection that reduced plant costs by more than 50%. It is a cost effective way to store hundreds of MW’s of off-peak electric energy from coal, nuclear or wind power plants underground and make it available during peak electric hours.

Iowa to Combine Wind Energy & CAES Technology - Municipal utilities in Iowa are planning a new energy park that would integrate a wind farm with Compressed Air Energy Storage (CAES) technology. The Iowa Stored Energy Park (IESP) will use low-cost, off-peak electricity and wind energy to store air underground in porous rock. As demand rises, the stored air will be used to drive generators. (Renewable Energy Access January 12, 2007)

Compressed air wind turbines - General Compression thinks it's found a way to make wind power available on-demand using turbines to compress air and store it underground. A pipeline network collects and stores compressed air and a power plant of expanders and generators produces electricity when needed. Wind farms could sell power during peak demand, making them grid compatible. (Inside Greentech Mar. 20, 2007)

CAES - McIntosh unit 1 was declared commercial May 31, 1991. The 100-megawatt CAES unit uses air compressed and stored in an underground cavern in the generation process. When the compressed air is needed for generation, it is mixed with natural gas in a convention gas turbine combustion process to generate electricity. The plant uses off-peak electricity to pump air into the cavern, then uses the air in the generation process during peak periods.

Electrolysis

See Directory:Electrolysis

Template: 43: Directory:Solar / Directory:Storage > Directory:Electrolysis > Directory:MIT:Daniel Nocera:Catalytic Electrolysis > New solar storage solution could be the key to home-brewed electricity - A new paper by MIT professor Daniel Nocera describes the development of a practical, inexpensive storage system for achieving personalized solar energy. At its heart is an innovative catalyst that splits water molecules into oxygen and hydrogen that become fuel for producing electricity in a fuel cell. (GizMag Nov. 4, 2009)

Flywheels

See Directory:Flywheels (separate page)

Image:Beacon Power flywheel unit 95x95.jpg

Hybrid Storage

Hybrid Energy Storage System - Smart Storage Pty will develop energy storage systems based on a hybrid battery which combines an asymmetric supercapacitor and a lead-acid battery in a single unit cell. The expected discharge and charge power of the Smart Storage battery will be 50% higher and its cycle-life at least 3x longer than conventional lead-acid. (Green Car Congress Nov. 26, 2007)

Heat

Free Energy Blog:2014:04:19 - Meet 'photoswitches,' a breakthrough set of materials that act as their own batteries, absorbing energy and releasing it on demand. (Free Energy Blog April 19, 2014)

Hydrogen

See Directory:Hydrogen Storage - separate page

Image:MOF-74 hydrogen storage NIST 95x95.jpg

Magnesium

Latest: Directory:Solar / Directory:Storage > Directory:Magnesium Energy Cycle - Professor Yabe of Tokyo Tech is heading the development of a process that combines magnesium and water to produce high energy steam and hydrogen, which is burned to produce additional high energy steam to power an engine with no harmful emissions. The magnesium oxide by-product is reduced back to magnesium through a solar powered laser process to be reused. (PESWiki Nov. 10, 2009)

Magnetic

Storing energy in magnetic fields - Superconducting Magnetic Energy Storage System or SMES is a way of storing electrical energy in magnetic fields. Chubu Electric Power and Furukawa Electric are creating an SMES not for long term storage, which SMES are not great at right now, but for quick energy bursts. SMES can store and release lots of energy very quickly like a capacitor. (AutoblogGreen Jan. 31, 2008)

Neptune Systems - Developing tidal energy converter systems based upon magneto hydro dynamic (MHD) concepts that can convert tidal motion directly into power using no moving parts. This device can simultaneously store the electricity it produces or that is produced by other generators (like offshore wind turbines) with a high storing capacity.

Ultraconducting Magnetic Energy Storage (UMES)

Advantages: Once polymer Ultraconductors are made into long wires, and assuming they sustain as expected, maintaining persistent currents, UMES are likely to perform at least as well as superconductors, only without the expensive and complex cryogenic cooling.

Some years ago, Magnetic Power, Inc. cooperated with a scientist at the Los Alamos National Laboratory who invented a technique of fabricating SMES perhaps eight feet in diameter. These could be produced in a factory and easily transported to their ultimate location. Several could be stacked and linked together by utilities to provide whatever amount of energy storage was needed. This would allow base load power plants to run at constant speed all day and night with great economic and fuel saving advantages.

Vehicles equipped with MPI’s GENIE™ generators could employ UMES instead of ultracapacitors for peak loads. GENIE (Generating Electricity by Nondestructive Interference of Energy) will replace any need for batteries.

The power grid could employ GENIE Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G) technology, which would allow utilities to maximize their plant and distribution system efficiencies. Cars, trucks and buses would wirelessly transmit up to 150 kW to the local electric power company. Peaks and valleys of electricity demand would no longer be a major concern.

See magneticpowerinc.com and www.ultraconductors.com for additional information.

Plasma

Directory:Storage > Directory:Plasma > New Plasma Device Considered the ‘Holy Grail’ of Energy Generation and Storage - Scientists at the University of Missouri have devised a new way to create and control plasma that could transform American energy generation and storage. The team has developed a device that launches a ring of plasma at distances of up to two feet. Although the plasma reaches a temperature hotter than the surface of the sun, it doesn’t emit radiation and is completely safe.... (News:Pure Energy Blog April 26, 2013)

Reservoir Storage

See Directory:Hydro

Image:Solar city tower waterfall 95x95.jpg

Directory:Hydro / Directory:Solar / Directory:Storage > Solar City Tower for Rio Olympics is a Giant Energy Generating Waterfall - A large solar power plant generates energy during the day. Any excess power not used pumps seawater into a storage tank within the tower. At night, the water is released to power turbines, which will provide nighttime power for the city. On special occasions water is pumped out to create a waterfall. (Inhabitat March 19, 2010)

Latest: Directory:Storage / Directory:Wind:Offshore / Directory:Energy Islands >Directory:KEMA's Inverse Offshore Pump Accumulation Stations - A new concept is being explored that would use excess renewable energy to pump water out of a lower reservoir into the surrounding sea as a storage mechanism. This artificial inverse island is being considered for off shore deployment in the North Sea. (PESWIki Jan. 28, 2009)

Thermal

Image:Isentropic Gravel Batteries compared to hydro 95x95.jpg

Latest: Directory:Storage > Directory:Utility Scale Batteries / Directory:Refrigeration > Directory:Isentropic Gravel Batteries for Renewable Grid Storage - Using two large tanks of gravel, argon gas, and a special heat pump design, the British company, Isentropic, uses the temperature difference between the tanks as an inexpensive energy storage and retrieval mechansim. Applicactions also include heating/cooling as well as solar generation. (PESWiki Apr. 28, 2010)

Solar

The Molten Salt Solution to Storing Solar Energy - The difference between the molten salt and other liquids that are used in this sort of system is that the molten salt retains heat for a long enough time that it can effectively time-shift the stored solar energy from when it is most efficiently generated to when it is most needed. SolarReserve video (TreeHugger June 30, 2008)

Directory:Solar > Directory:Concentrated Solar Power > Solar power generation around the clock - SolarReserve is developing a solar power system that can store seven hours' worth of solar energy by focusing mirrors onto millions of gallons of molten salt, allowing the plant to provide electricity 24 hours a day. The 150-megawatt plant will include 4.4 million gallons of molten salt. (PhysOrg Nov. 5, 2009)

Using Wood For Battery Power - The Enertia® Building System turns wood into a material that can store solar energy. Zeolitic seed crystals are injected into the wood, altering the molecular structure at a nanolevel- turning it into a thermal battery. When the house is properly configured and sited it can heat and cool itself. (Mercury News Mar. 18, 2007)

Electricity Storage in Refrigerated Warehouses - "Night Wind" project will lower the temperature of large coldstores in Europe by just 1°C during the night when electricity demand is low, then let it rise 1°C by switching them off during the day when demand is at peak. The net effect would be that the warehouses would act as batteries — potentially storing 50,000 megawatt-hours of energy. (TreeHugger Feb. 12, 2007)

Drake Landing Solar Community - DLSC is heated by a district borehole thermal energy storage system that supplies 90% of each home’s space heating requirements. The solar thermal energy is captured by flat-plate collectors on garage rooftops during the summer months and stored underground for space heating needs during winter months.

Thermo-Chemical Storage

Image:MIT thermo-chemical solar energy 95x96.jpg

Directory:Solar / Directory:Storage / Directory:Thermal Electric > Thermo-Chemical Solar Energy could be efficient and indefinitely storable - Researchers at MIT are working on a new process in thermo-chemical solar energy that uses a molecular structure reconfiguration to capture energy from the sun, potentially storing it forever. A molecule of fulvalene diruthenium changes its configuration when it absorbs heat, and later releases heat when it snaps back to its original shape. (MIT News Oct. 26, 2010)

Zeolite

Zeolite-Water Heating and Cooling System - Zeo-Tech has developed a new energy conversion process for the efficient generation and storage of heat and/or cooling power. Driven by a heat source, this process is solely based on the material zeolite and water and is therefore fully compatible with the most stringent environmental regulations.

Other Materials

Image:WSU chemist Choong-Shik Yoo storage materials 95x95.jpg

Directory:Storage > 'Never-before-seen material' can store vast amounts of energy - Using super-high pressures similar to those found deep in the Earth or on a giant planet, researchers from Washington State University have created a compact, never-before-seen material capable of storing vast amounts of energy. Described by one of the researchers as “the most condensed form of energy storage outside of nuclear energy,” the material holds potential for creating a new class of energetic materials... (GizMag July 4, 2010)

Resources

Curtis Johnson Realty

In the News

See News:Energy Storage' - separate page