ABSTRACT:
Renewable energy cost have dropped significantly over the past decades so that they meanwhile represent a valuable contribution to today’s energy mix. However, the most competitive generation methods, such as wind and PV, suffer from an erratic and volatile generation profile, meaning that in many periods generation exceeds demand and more severely demand exceeds generation. Thus, the further employment of renewable energies requires appropriate measures such as grid enhancement, storage and fossil back-up capacity. Whereas fossil back-up would oppose the idea of CO2 reduction, population is very reluctant to favor and support grid enhancement. Hence, storage appears to become a sustainable and appropriate mean to face the current situation and could pave the way forward to successfully accomplish the idea of the energy transition.
This presentation demonstrates a fully mature technological solution to store excessive renewable energy (when it is not needed) and to use it on demand.