Five types of energy storage
A wide array of different types of energy storage options are available for use in the energy sector and more are emerging as the technology becomes a key component in the energy systems of the future worldwide.
1. Battery storage
Batteries encompass a range of chemistries. The best known and in widespread use in portable electronic devices and vehicles are lithium-ion and lead acid. Others solid battery types are nickel-cadmium and sodium-sulphur, while zinc-air is emerging.
Another category is flow batteries with liquid electrolyte solutions, including vanadium redox and iron-chromium and zinc-bromine chemistries.
Supercapacitors, although not a battery as such, also can be categorised as an electrochemical technology, with their application particularly for sub-minute level response.
2. Thermal storage
Thermal storage in essence involves the capture and release of heat or cold in a solid, liquid or air and potentially involving changes of state of the storage medium, e.g. from gas to liquid or solid to liquid and vice versa.
Technologies include energy storage with molten salt and liquid air or cryogenic storage. Molten salt has emerged as commercially viable with concentrated solar power but this and other heat storage options may be limited by the need for large underground storage caverns.
3. Mechanical storage
Mechanical storage systems are arguably the simplest, drawing on the kinetic forces of rotation or gravitation to store energy. But feasibility in today’s grid applications requires the application of the latest technologies.
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The main options are energy storage with flywheels and compressed air systems, while gravitational energy is an emerging technology with various options under development.
4. Pumped hydro
Energy storage with pumped hydro systems based on large water reservoirs has been widely implemented over much of the past century to become the most common form of utility-scale storage globally.
Such systems require water cycling between two reservoirs at different levels with the ‘energy storage’ in the water in the upper reservoir, which is released when the water is released to the lower reservoir.
5. Hydrogen
Energy storage with hydrogen, which is still emerging, would involve its conversion from electricity via electrolysis for storage in tanks. From there it can later undergo either re-electrification or supply to emerging applications such as transport, industry or residential as a supplement or replacement to gas.
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