Technology that Could Turn the Tide on Climate Change: Energy Storage

New technology is required to make meaningful progress on climate change. This column will focus on one of those options: energy storage. A breakthrough in this area could alter the energy landscape and help the effort to combat climate change.

Improvements in utility scale energy storage could help decrease emissions and increase efficiency. The usual variability of demand for electricity causes inefficiency in energy production. This is true for any feedstock but it is especially true for renewables. Renewables are intermittent; peak production times for wind and solar don't match peak load times.

The next generation of energy storage can solve this problem. Improved energy storage would allow utilities to store the extra power generated by renewable sources and use it during peak load periods. This would also smooth out the peaks and valleys in fossil fuel-generated electricity, improving efficiency and decreasing the need for expensive energy from peaking plants.

Improved storage increases the flexibility of the utilities. It would allow them to quickly respond to increases in demand and take advantage of bursts of increased supply from renewable sources.

There are a series of demonstration projects underway that will explore ways of expanding energy storage including high tech batteries, thermal energy storage, and pumped hydro.