Long-duration energy storage – Climate action basics

??????? ??????? ?????? is a series of posts done by CliDemy – the Climate Academy. The goal is to provide effective awareness about specific topics within climate action for those keen on pursuing climate action careers & professions.
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As solar and wind power generation increases worldwide, it appears that all’s getting better, but hey hold on, not all…

Solar and wind power are renewable and zero carbon, but they produce power whenever sun shines or the wind blows – not exactly at the kind of reliability and consistency our electricity grids want…

And here enter batteries…by storing extra electricity generated by the renewable energy sources and releasing it when needed, it stabilizes the grid. But batteries are expensive, use toxic materials, and are more suited for short term storage (a few days at best).

Building a resilient renewable energy grid requires energy storage that can storage solutions that can store energy longer – much longer.

And this is where a different genre of energy storage solutions make their grand entry.

Clubbed broadly under the category of Long Duration Energy Storage (LDES) are technologies that can store energy for weeks and even months, so that even seasonal energy storage becomes a possibility.

While there are many solution genres emerging under LDES, three of them deserve mention:
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CAES uses the simple principle of compressing a fluid during excess power availability, and when the fluid expands it runs a turbine and generates power. Hydrostor (Canada) is a prominent startup belonging t o this category.

Gravity Storage is simplicity itself. During times of excess power, the electricity is used to lift solid blocks, and when the power is needed back again, the blocks descend due to gravity and this motion releases the energy back for use. Energy Vault (Switzerland) is a prominent startup credited with pioneering gravity storage.

PCM based long term storage could use a range of materials that changes phases (solid to liquid, liquid to gas & vice versa). Here, during excess electricity, the surplus energy is used to convert a liquid into solid (water to ice, for instance) or gas to liquid (CO2 gas to CO2 liquid), and when these change their forms back to their originals, the energy is released. One interesting startup that uses CO2 as the phase change material is Energy Dome (Italy).

I hope you found this brief post useful.
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