Innovative ways of storing energy for energy on demand
Renewable energy is a great addition to places with poor energy infrastructure that experience frequent power failures, but is not enough to ensure reliable energy supply. Adding energy storage is essential in those cases, but many developing countries cannot afford the current battery systems. One company that tries to solve that problem and bring an affordable solution is H2GO Power. The company is working on an innovative way of storing hydrogen that could be used later when needed.
Although the use of lithium ion batteries is widespread, they have some disadvantages, like variability in performance and limited energy density. According to David Howey at the University of Oxford, there are many alternative battery technologies, like the lithium metal designs that are expected to have higher capacities, but most are still experimental and need to overcome their own obstacles to become commercially feasible.
A professor at MIT, Yet-Ming Chiang, has been working on inventing novel battery designs and has developed a “semisolid” lithium ion battery that he hopes would be perfect for grid storage applications. He is also working on a sulphur battery technology that might potentially be used in developing countries to store energy for long periods of time.
If you want to know more about this and other topics directly from end users of energy storage technologies join us at one of these annual events: The Energy Storage World Forum (Grid Scale Applications), or The Residential Energy Storage Forum, or one of our Training Courses.