May 12 2010
Up till now, gas was utilized for generating electricity. Currently, entrepreneurs and researchers of a German-Austrian cooperation want to store additional electricity including solar power and wind as methane and store the same in presently existing gas storage plants.
Recently, German researchers have successfully stored renewable electrical energy as natural gas. With the help of a novel process, the researchers produced synthetic natural gas from electricity. In collaboration with the Fraunhofer Institute for Wind Energy and Energy System Technology IWES, this novel process was created by the Center for Solar Energy and Hydrogen Research Baden-Württemberg (ZSW). Presently, Austria-based partner firm Solar Fuel Technology is installing the industrial application of this process. A demonstration system constructed for Solar Fuel Technology is already functioning successfully in Stuttgart. A large-scale system is scheduled to be introduced by 2012.
The growth of renewable energies has led to the requirement for novel storage technologies. Especially, this is of interest for power companies and utilities. Fraunhofer IWES’ Michael Sterner explains that the excess energy generated by wind turbines during high wind speeds can be stored as renewable methane or natural gas using this new technology.
The natural gas network’s storage reservoir in Germany is huge equaling over 200 TWh, sufficient to meet energy consumption for numerous months. The capacity of the power network is only 0.04 TWh. The incorporation into the infrastructure can be simple. The natural gas alternative can be stocked like traditional natural gas in the pipelines, storage systems and supply network to burn natural gas heating systems or drive natural gas cars.