Clean Energy Storage

As I have mentioned in my previous posts, storage of renewable energy seems to be one of the greatest barriers to entirely replacing fossil fuels with clean energy.

In my next few posts, I intend to investigate this crucial and exciting area by looking at existing solutions and some of the innovative, less developed ideas to assess how realistic it is to expect a solution that can revolutionise this sector in coming years.

The lack of flexibility of renewable energy is a key problem, and one which prevents many nations from fully supporting the transition to cleaner energy. With a globalised world so heavily reliant on energy to support our every need, access to a constant supply to meet national demand at all times, is absolutely imperative for maintaining economic development and high quality of life. Rapidly developing countries, such as India, experience periods of the day where energy demand is not met. Therefore, as a country, they are focused on resolving these issues to continue their economic growth and improvement in standards of living. 

India's power supply and demand gap
Source: A.T. Kearney

Therefore, it is understandable that many see renewable energy as a step back for a nations development. It may lead to occasions where demand is not met and this is unimaginable in a developed country such as the UK, where we have the luxury of switching on a light, the kettle, or charging our phone at any given moment, without so much as a thought about how that energy is being provided and whether it may run out. A brief power cut is enough of an inconvenience.

So yes, at present, the full clean energy revolution is unrealistic, because for a complete transition to occur, we must ensure that demand can also be met. This is why energy storage is so exciting and important. I think it is fair to say, whoever creates a solution that is not only efficient on an industrial scale, but also cost effective, will have a name that goes down in history.

I will be covering some of the existing areas that are starting to transform this area. These include compressed air, flywheel technology and batteries. The most well known energy storage system is likely to be the Tesla Powerwall, so this will be looked at in more detail in my next post.