The ongoing global green transition requires efficient energy storage systems to meet industrialized society's growing energy demands. This article will explore types, applications, history, challenges, company and research developments, and future directions in energy storage systems.
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Energy Storage Systems: Overview, Types, and Applications
What is Energy Storage?
Storing energy in the form of electricity or fuel is crucial for many applications, such as support services for electricity grids, electric vehicles (EVs), renewables, and even smartphones.
Energy storage systems can store energy when there is a surplus and release it when there is an energy deficit. This improves energy efficiency, stabilizing energy demand and avoiding power cuts that have historically plagued energy grids.1
Types of Energy Storage
Types of energy storage systems include batteries, supercapacitors, ultracapacitors, and fuel cells. Energy from fossil fuels or renewable resources can be converted into fuels, such as methane, hydrogen, or biogas, for conversion into energy at a future date.1
Energy Storage and Applications
Energy storage systems are a key element of the green transition, especially as highly reliable but polluting fossil fuels are being phased out in favor of more environmentally friendly but inherently intermittent renewable energy technologies. By placing energy storage systems between the producer and consumer, renewable energy becomes much more reliable, helping its penetration into the grid.
Batteries are essential to EVs, allowing them to store and use clean energy instead of petroleum-based fuels. Conventional battery technologies rely on lithium-ions, which have their own set of challenges, but several alternatives are currently being researched.
Energy storage systems are flexible and rapidly deployable. They can be deployed as part of a microgrid or in parallel with hybrid power plants, balancing and optimizing renewable power generation for the next generation.1
History of Energy Storage Systems
Energy storage systems have a history that stretches back to the 19th century, when the first battery, the Volta Cell, was developed.2 Lithium-ion batteries, the prevalent technology today, were commercialized in the 1990s. Many different types of rechargeable batteries have emerged in the past few decades.
The Leyden jar, considered the first capacitor, was invented in the 18th century in the Netherlands. The history of biofuels stretches back even further to the ancient world, but the 19th century saw their first use as an alternative to conventional fuels for energy storage.
Transportation energy storage systems have evolved rapidly over the past few decades. Trains and trams, for instance, can store braking energy, which can be released when needed. Hybrid automobiles utilize braking energy to recharge batteries and save on fuel consumption.
Today’s energy storage systems are becoming increasingly sophisticated, helping to decarbonize multiple industrial sectors and accelerate the ongoing green transition away from environmentally damaging fossil fuels.
Challenges of Storing Energy
While modern energy storage systems bring several key benefits to decarbonizing energy grids, such as resilience, reduced carbon emissions, and cheaper energy for consumers, engineers and scientists must also overcome several critical challenges.
Some primary challenges include high implementation costs, battery materials, battery size and cost, a lack of standardized technologies, and regulatory issues surrounding their use and role in the energy transition. Many challenges are technical, but several key roadblocks are associated with governmental and economic policies.
Company and Research Developments in Energy Storage Systems
The opportunities that energy storage systems can bring to industry and the wider society are well publicized, and recent research and company developments are helping to drive the industrial-scale implementation of these critical green technologies worldwide.
In Australia, for instance, the Queensland government is investing in iron electrolyte flow battery technologies. The government is funding a new factory to produce these energy storage solutions, with AU$25 million investment. The factory is slated to come online by the end of 2029.3
Puget Sound Energy in the US is adding two new resources—a solar PV project and a standalone battery storage project—to its resource mix.4 Pumped hydropower is significantly boosted through new agreements in Spain and India.
In research news, a new molecular thermal energy storage system has been announced, achieving 14.9% solar to chemical energy conversion efficiency. This hybrid device combines a layer that stores solar thermal energy and cools it with a solar PV cell. In this system, organic molecules are irradiated and undergo a transformation which allows them to store energy for future use.5
Future Directions in Energy Storage Technologies
The energy storage system sector has made significant progress in recent years, with several breakthrough technologies currently being researched and nearing commercialization. Robust and efficient energy storage systems will be crucial for the green transition and in mitigating the severe impacts of the climate emergency.
The MIT Energy Initiative provides a few future directions for the sector. These include recognizing the tradeoffs between zero and net zero to avoid high energy costs, which could make climate goals more challenging to achieve by 2050. Furthermore, there needs to be a recognition of the role developing nations will play in the energy storage sector and net zero goals.6
More investment must also be made in regulatory agency staff and analytical resources. Robust analytical tools will help with reliable planning for future power systems that utilize renewable energy and advanced energy storage technologies. Moreover, governments must prioritize funding for long-duration storage, and consumers must be rewarded for more flexible electricity use.
Finally, key energy storage technologies will remain vital to worldwide electricity grids in the coming years. Four leading technologies are pumped hydropower, thermal energy storage, batteries, and mechanical energy storage. More efficient systems are being developed over the next few years for implementation and to aid the green transition.7
Continue Reading: Solar Energy Storage Solutions: Enhancing the Reliability of Photovoltaic Systems
References and Further Reading
- Clarke Energy (2024) Energy Storage [online] clarke-energy.com. Available at: https://www.clarke-energy.com/energy-storage/ (Accessed on 29 September 2024)
- Whittingam, M.S. (2012) History, Evolution, and Future Status of Energy Storage Proceedings of the IEEE vol. 100 pp. 1518-1534 [online] ieeexplore.com. Available at: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/6184265 (Accessed on 29 September 2024)
- Colthorpe, A (2024) Queensland invests in Australia’s first ’14-hour’ duration iron flow battery factory [online] Energy Storage News. Available at: https://www.energy-storage.news/queensland-invests-in-australias-first-14-hour-duration-iron-flow-battery-factory/ (Accessed on 19 September 2024)
- Colthorpe, A (2024) Qcells, Brightnight sign solar PV, BESS contracts with utility Puget Sound in Washington, US [online] Energy Storage News. Available at: https://www.energy-storage.news/qcells-brightnight-sign-solar-pv-bess-contracts-with-utility-puget-sound-in-washington-us/ (Accessed on 29 September 2024)
- Jowett, P (2024) PV-based molecular thermal energy storage system achieves 14.9% solar utilization efficiency [online] PV Magazine. Available at: https://www.pv-magazine.com/2024/09/24/pv-based-molecular-thermal-energy-storage-system-achieves-14-9-solar-utilization-efficiency/ (Accessed on 29 September 2024)
- MIT Energy Initiative (2022) The Future of Energy Storage [online] Available at: https://energy.mit.edu/research/future-of-energy-storage/ (Accessed on 29 September 2024)
- Masterson, V (2021) How can we store renewable energy? 4 technologies that can help [online] World Economic Forum. Available at: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/04/renewable-energy-storage-pumped-batteries-thermal-mechanical (Accessed on 29 September 2024)
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