Energy storage is heating up to be “clean energy’s next trillion-dollar business.” Keeping energy grids stable and reliable throughout the global clean energy transition will require a massive expansion of energy storage capacities as well as research and development into novel ways of storing energy that can contend with the massive influx of variable energy that the future of global energy security is supposed to depend on.Wind and solar energy are critical to the global decarbonization movement but pose some key challenges for energy security in terms of steady supply and steady pricing. Solar and wind are variable energy sources, which means that their production levels fluctuate according to external and uncontrollable factors including the weather, time of day, and the seasons. Plus, some people have solar panels on their houses, making them both energy producers and consumers with a two-way flow to grids which were built with only one direction of flow in mind. And then there’s the runaway growth in electric vehicle markets, which will also present a whole new source of stress for electric grids.The inevitable mismatch of variable energy production and consumer demand places a significant strain on electric grids designed for a steady and easily manipulated supply of fossil fuels and has created complex issues in global energy markets. In some places where renewables already make up a significant part of the energy mix, energy prices can even dip below zero. “This lowers the potential for spot market earnings for producers and highlights the need for complementary investments in flexibility and storage capacity,” the International Energy Agency reports. But while energy storage is a relatively elementary concept, its execution is anything but simple. The vast number of variables facing modern electricity grids, from EVs to residential solar to mass-scale variable energies, requires a wide range of plural storage solutions. “Energy storage systems can range from fast responsive options for near real-time and daily management of the networks to longer duration options for the unpredictable week-to-week variations and more predictable seasonal variations in supply and demand,” Smart Energy International reports. What’s more, they range from incredible complex systems relying on futuristic innovations such as green hydrogen schemes to straightforward and low-tech approaches involving pulleys, weight, and gravity. Some of today’s most promising forms of energy storage include:BatteriesMost energy storage today runs on lithium-ion batteries. These batteries are ubiquitous and useful, but have relatively short-term storage capacities and rely on lithium, which comes with its own slew of geopolitical and environmental issues. Researchers are currently hard at work discovering other forms of batteries to replace some of lithium-ion batteries’ market share, including this proton battery.Thermal“Thermal storage in essence in
Gio. Gen 9th, 2025
