Has energy storage kept pace with renewable technology?
June 25, 2017
Solar energy, and to a lesser extent wind energy, have moved ahead of the ability to manage their intermittent nature without similar growth in cost effective energy storage.
On June 24, Sidney Green chaired a meeting on large-scale energy storage that could be used to support solar and wind electricity. The meeting was supported by the National Science Foundation, Geothermal Energy SedHeat Program with cooperation of the American Rock Mechanics Association.
The small invited group considered a concept of solar thermal underground energy storage.
Underground storage competes with surface heat storage in tanks, and is more complicated then surface storage in some ways. However, for large-scale Gigawatt hours of energy storage, underground storage may be more practical and cost effective at least in some situations.
The full Report is available online here.