Monday, May 11, 2009

Storing renewable energy

I have often pondered about the problem on storing excess renewable energy so that it can be used later on. However i never could come to a logical conclusion..

Storing energy in batteries is really not the rite away. Batteries themselves take a certain amount of carbon for manufacturing and they are not really reliable on a long term basis. Again some time back there was this idea that cars would be hooked on to the grid which would allow excess energy generated at night to be pumped into the cars and then retrieved back during the day when the other guys need it...But it does not still make sense..the idea is workable but not elegant...

This other day, I came across a documentary on the news where some island nation had put in plans to achieve carbon neutrality by 2012....They had wind farms, obviously...but what i really liked was the way they stored excess energy..they would pump up water to a high reservoir which would then be allowed to flow down and generate hydal energy...Pretty simple huh...

use the extra energy for creating potential energy...amazing...

No comments: