Electricity can be used to generate thermal energy, which can be stored until needed. Thermal energy storage can also be used to heat and cool buildings instead of generating electricity.
Electricity itself cannot be stored because it contains a mobile component. However, other forms of energy can be stored and converted into electricity at will. The most common type of this storage is the battery, which stores chemical energy and converts it into electricity.
Energy storage can also help meet power demand during peak hours, such as on hot summer days when air conditioners blow up, or after dark when households turn on lights and electronics. In addition, the additional capacity provided by electricity storage may delay or avoid the need to build additional power plants or transmission and distribution infrastructure.
For example, electricity storage can be used to integrate more renewable energy into the grid. The electricity storage system can be combined with a renewable energy source to store excess green energy.
The Advantage of Battery Storage
The battery storage system can be charged with electricity derived from renewable energy sources such as wind and solar power. Energy is released from the battery system during peak demand, reducing costs and energy flow. Battery storage or Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS) are devices that store and release energy from renewable sources such as solar and wind when customers need it most.
Like flywheels, batteries can be placed anywhere, which is why they are often considered as distribution warehouses when the battery factory is located close to consumers to ensure power supply stability; or for end use, such as batteries for electric vehicles.
Electric vehicles can also be impacted by energy storage through car-to-grid technologies, where their batteries can be connected to the grid and discharge energy for others to use. Interestingly, electric vehicles can be used as backup storage during periods of power outage or peak demand. Battery technologies can also provide power to the grid, as well as provide many of the ancillary services15 needed to keep the grid stable. Once the stored energy is sent to the power grid, the speed at which the storage technology can recharge can affect when and how often the system is recharged.
Energy Storage Is Great for Living Off-Grid
In an electricity grid without energy storage, production based on energy stored as fuel (coal, biomass, natural gas, nuclear) must increase and decrease in order to adapt to the increase and decrease in electricity production from intermittent sources (see load next to the central one).
For batteries to work, electricity must be converted to a form of chemical potential before it can be easily stored. To perform storage, you must convert electrical energy into another form (chemical, such as batteries) and convert another form (chemical) back into electricity when you need it. Grid energy consists of using off-peak or renewable electricity for compression. air that is usually stored in an old mine or other geological feature.
Another way to store electricity is to compress and cool air, turning it into liquid air, which can be stored and expanded as needed by spinning turbines that generate electricity, with storage efficiencies as high as 70%. Compressed air energy storage works like a pumped hydroelectric power plant, but instead of pushing water up, it uses excess electricity to compress and store energy underground. The heat is then used to generate electricity, and the sun can be used even after the sun goes down.
Electricity Storage Helps Improve Efficiency
Electricity storage can also help power plants operate at optimal levels and reduce the use of less efficient generator sets that would otherwise only operate during peak hours. The demand side can also store electricity from the grid, for example by charging the batteries of electric vehicles, to store energy for vehicles, while thermal storage, district heating thermal storage or ice storage can provide thermal storage for buildings. In addition, energy storage can provide other benefits, called ancillary services, which are necessary for an efficient, stable and reliable power system.
Energy storage can also be of great importance for electricity generated by solar or wind power, which can only be used when the sun is shining and the wind is blowing. Electricity storage could increase greenhouse gas emissions if electricity from less expensive, low-carbon coal-fired power plants were stored and replaced by more expensive peak power from low-carbon natural gas generators. Renewable energy storage requires low-cost technologies with a long service life (charging and discharging thousands of times), safe and able to efficiently store enough energy to meet demand.
Energy Storage Is Still Extremely Important
We are still a long way from complete next-generation energy storage solutions that use completely new materials that can greatly increase the amount of energy a battery can store. Lithium-ion batteries, used in cell phones and electric vehicles, are now the dominant storage technology for large power plants, helping power grids provide a reliable supply of renewable energy. Modular battery technologies typically store electrical energy in chemical environments that can be converted to electricity and consist of individual, standardized cells of relatively low power and voltage that are typically combined to serve larger loads.
These are examples of the mostly large monolithic systems used today for energy storage that do not store electricity directly, but provide the means to generate electricity by using a stored medium (such as water or air).
Alternatives to Electrical Energy Storage Exist
Other technologies are useful for storing and releasing large amounts of electricity over longer periods of time (known as peak smoothing, load balancing, or power arbitrage). While most electric vehicles today are not designed to feed electricity into the grid, grid-connected (V2G) vehicles can store electricity in car batteries and then transfer it back to the grid at a later time.
Some electrical services are planning to use old removable car batteries (sometimes resulting in a giant battery) to store electricity [58] [59]. battery with a full charge-discharge cycle. However, compared to other grid-scale storage systems, flow batteries are cheaper, have fewer vulnerabilities, and can hold the potential to store large amounts of energy for extended periods of time—one of the reasons Drax Power Station is funding a PhD in this area.