A storage reservoir for a pumped-water hydroelectricity plant on Zar Mountain in southern Poland.
Credit: Ongrys via Wikimedia Commons)
LONDON — Inventors are in a race to find the best way of storing electricity to make the most of renewables and cut the use of fossil fuels.
Currently, when more power than needed by consumers is produced by sources such as wind turbines or solar panels, some of the electricity is wasted. But that is changing.
Governments have realised that one of their biggest challenges in cutting the use of fossil fuels is to store surplus electricity for use at peak times.
At present, coal and gas plants are left ticking over or running at below capacity, ready to be turned on to full load to meet peak demand. This greatly adds to greenhouse gas emissions.
The UK’s Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology believes that energy storage has vast growth […]
Another way to balance the load is to use large numbers of small generators. Both Cummins and Siemens make small units (megawatts) that could be used in generator farms just like we have server farms for the web. These units could be brought up as needed and thus avoid the waste from spinning reserves in the big plants.