We could soon use hills as batteries to store solar and wind energy
While solar and wind power are now the cheapest sources of energy across the world, energy storage remains one of the biggest hurdles preventing a full switch to renewables. This is because it’s still quite expensive to use batteries for storing power. A startup, however, has figured out a new Read More...
This new material could help store renewable energy for months at a time
As renewable energy generation continues to grow at an exponential rate, it is essential that we find technologies that can efficiently store that energy until it’s needed. A new material identified by scientists at Lancaster University could offer exactly that. Known as a metal-organic Read More...
New power plant uses liquid air to store renewable energy
While batteries are great for short-term energy storage, they are still too expensive to do long-term energy storage. Plus, batteries require minerals that are becoming increasingly scarce as the world moves towards power systems based on variable renewable energy. Fortunately, there is a promising Read More...
This system uses massive weights to store energy
When you coil a spring, you load it with a bunch of potential energy that gets released when you let go. Using the same basic principle, a Scottish company called Gravitricity is creating an energy storage facility that uses weights instead of springs to store energy. The idea is to hold 500 to Read More...
How the world’s biggest battery could help solve blackouts in California
California aims to run its grid entirely on fossil-fuel-free energy by 2045 and has been closing down dirty power plants and ramping up renewables at a steady clip. But while fuels can supply a steady stream of energy, the sun and wind are intermittent. That’s where the Gateway Energy storage Read More...
Scientists have turned the humble brick into a battery
This may sound crazy, but scientists have actually managed to turn the humble brick into a battery that can store electricity. Now you might be asking yourself: how is this possible? Well, the new technology exploits the porous nature of fired red bricks by filling the pores with tiny nanofibers Read More...
‘Million-mile’ EV batteries are near. The impact could be massive.
Electric vehicles (EVs) have a clear environmental advantage over their gas-guzzling counterparts, but when it comes to longevity, the two are in dead heat. Two hundred thousand miles is considered a good, long run for a car built today, regardless of whether it’s powered by a lithium battery Read More...
Energy storage: Construction begins on world’s largest liquid air battery
One of the biggest hurdles limiting the widespread use of renewable energy is storage. In the UK, however, engineers are now developing the world’s largest liquid air battery, which will store renewable electricity and reduce carbon emissions from fossil-fuel power plants. Located near Read More...
Fruit waste shows great potential as energy-storage technology
Biowaste has been used for energy production for some time already (see this story about using coffee grounds in your tank!), but tapping into its potential for energy storage is quite a recent phenomenon. Particularly, two unusual tropical fruits have been standing out as attractive candidates to Read More...
This startup is storing energy in compressed air
Although we have the ability to produce massive amounts of clean energy today, the problem is that we can’t store all of that power, which means it’s not always reliable. And while lithium-ion batteries have started to meet some of the need for storage, the metals needed to make them are not Read More...