Waste offers potential energy storage solution for solar and wind

Solar and wind energy industries are growing rapidly in many countries all across the globe. These two fast growing industries, despite all the growth, are still in search of adequate energy storage solution that would solve intermittency issue of these two renewable energy sources.

There are many ongoing researches working on various solutions to save excess solar and wind energy for times when the sun is down and the wind isn't blowing. The perfect storage solution still hasn't been found, and batteries are usually the most talked about as the most promising solution.

There have been many proposed solutions, and one that is currently most often used is pumped hydroelectric storage. According to the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) pumped hydroelectric storage accounts for more than 99% of bulk production capacity worldwide.

In 2010 the United States had 21.5 GW of pumped storage generating capacity, and U.S. is also the home to the largest operational pumped-storage plant in the world, the Bath County Pumped Storage Station.

Another potential approach for new energy storage solution is using sugar alcohols in mix with carbon nanotubes as reported in ACS’ Journal of Physical Chemistry C. Sugar alcohol is a readily available waste product of the food industry.

Scientists want to store energy as heat and have been exploring sugar alcohols as a possible material for making thermal storage work. There are still plenty of limitations in this technology, but also a big potential that should open the door for further research.

Turning waste into any useful form of energy and doing it cost-effectively would certainly revolutionize our entire energy industry.

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Is battery storage the right solution for the intermittency of solar and wind?

Solar and wind technologies have experienced significant advancements in the last decades or so which as resulted in lower prices and improved efficiency of these technologies. However, the question of intermittency is still something for which solar and wind energy industry haven't found the right answer for.

Solar and wind are intermittent energy sources. What this means is that solar panels and wind turbines are not able to generate power all day long but only in certain periods of day. As a result of intermittency their power output can diminish fairly quickly in periods when the wind no longer blows or the sun hides behind the clouds.

In order to provide reliability to these two renewable energy sources the researchers are searching for adequate energy storage solutions, in form of other backup power sources, such as for instance battery storage.

The intermittency of solar and wind isn't a big deal yet because these two renewable energy sources still account for very small percent of total generated power. In U.S. for instance solar currently produces only around one percent of the total power, while wind power currently accounts for only around 2.3% of U.S. total electricity generation. 

However, many energy analysts have predicted a massive growth in solar and wind power capacity which means that there isn't too much time to solve intermittency issue. The countries that plan to significantly expand their renewable energy production by using more solar and wind should therefore be already thinking about what may be the most adequate energy storage solution.

Lithium ion battery storage is for many energy experts a very interesting renewable energy solution to solve the intermittency of wind and solar. Two largest lithium ion battery storage facilities are in West Virginia and China.

Lithium ion batteries are not the only types of batteries used for energy storage. Japan, for instance, is the home to the largest battery farm in the world which uses sodium-sulfur batteries and provides 238 megawatt-hours. The other example includes Alaskan battery farm where they use a nickel-cadmium batteries that provide 46 megawatts in five minutes.

The further technological improvements will no doubt result in the development of other types of batteries that will be significantly more powerful then the ones used today. The battery manufacturing market is constantly growing offering very interesting options for future renewable energy use.

In this sense, battery storage may eventually prove to be the solution to solve the intermittency of solar and wind, but only after the development of cost-effective technologies.

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