The Guardian reports developers are trialling diverse energy storage technologies from the Nevada desert to Greater Manchester to help solar and wind supply power when generation falls. In the United Arab Emirates a solar project covering about 12,600 football fields pairs 5.2 GW of solar capacity with 19 GWh of battery storage to keep the lights on through the night. In Nevada the Crescent Dunes scheme uses 10,000 heliostat panes to heat a potassium and sodium nitrate molten salt reservoir to 560C and has operated for the past 10 years. At the former coal site in Trafford Highview Power is building a Carrington cryobattery that cools air to minus 196C, stores it as a liquid and will deliver 300 MWh of storage with 50 MW output for six hours when it begins operations, slated for the end of the year. The US National Renewable Energy Laboratory is developing some of the smallest batteries yet, designed to power electronic tags for tracking 3 inch long young salmon and eel. The article highlights alternatives to lithium ion that can avoid heavy reliance on lithium, cobalt and nickel, and says many of these technologies can be used indefinitely and recycled after a roughly 20 year service life. Finnish projects are also mentioned using thousands of tonnes of sand to store heat for schools and town halls, reducing oil use and cutting wood chip demand by about 60 percent.
David Emmett5
Jonny Morris5
