Is Solar Energy Storage Necessary Or Not?

Energy types like water,steam,compressed air could be stored and used when required. But electricity cannot be stored in bulk except little in batteries/ups.The money spent and losses on huge batteries will be very high,but to a certain extent solar/wind power should be stored in an emergency instead of depending on standby generators which sometimes may not start or develop trouble during running.

The idea of storing energy from wind and solar into large underwater cylindrical "bags" was thought of by an Ontario researcher a while back, though not implemented.. What has fascinated me was it's potential to help raise water levels of the upper great lakes, should it be done on massive scale. Lakes Erie, Huron and the Georgian Bay has seen a dramatic drop in lake levels over the past few years, causing massive profit losses. Why not bag up compressed air, under the pressure of lake water, and release it when needed, and at the same time displacing water and raising lake levels? Surely the money being lost could be offset by a project such as this?!

Uh-huh. And we are proposing to offset the buoyancy of these air bags just how?? A quick calculation shows it would take over half a TRILLION cubic feet of storage just to raise Lake Huron by 1 foot at current published surface area- almost 15 million tons of uplift. Not saying that it's necessarily a bad idea in itself, just how likely is to make a practical difference?

Now if you could insulate the bags well enough to be able to store CO2 above it's critical pressure at a relevant temperature that could be maintained down there, that seems interesting. The buoyancy issue would be far less and it would likely be much more practical and efficient to extract the energy. Plus, there would be lots of greenhouse operators that would like to build nearby for you to exhaust through!

But don't fossil fuels get their energy from the sun?

Entropy is a itch-bay.

(I'm glad to see I'm not the only one who finds the vernacular to be annoyingly inaccurate.)

When "the only one star" is gone what will happen to lives on earth

Generally speaking, aren't all energy storage methods, with the exception of hydrogen fuel, solar energy storage? Isn't it really all about charging rates and energy loss?

Why limit storage to solar power? Our current on demand electricity production system seems inefficient to me. The power generation system is built to handle peak demand, but only has to run at that level part of the day for part of the year. I'm sure it gets leveled out by selling across larger distances and multiple markets but you could really level out the supply if there was "bulk" storage for peak demand.

Without getting into the semantics of what constitutes "Solar Energy", let's try and deal with the energy storage question. According to Nicole, "...the central question of the debate seems to be whether energy storage is necessary, or if a solar power system can be trusted to react to the demands of its users..."

I'm not sure who posed this question, but I suspect it has to do with who will benefit from having storage; i.e., the providers of such systems. Despite all the rhetoric, PV systems that have access to the grid do not need storage, although they may benefit from having it. Similarly, PV systems that are remote from the grid require some form of storage if they are intended to operate continuously and there is no local generation.

Regarding the question of whether a PV system can be "trusted", the answer again depends upon whether it is grid connected or not. If it is, then it can be "trusted" to supply energy when the sun is shining with sufficient intensity. If isolated, and without any local generation and/or storage, then it obviously can't be trusted unless the sun is shining sufficiently.

Nicole states "... lack of solar energy storage is severely impacting the adoption and acceptance of solar power in the UK...", I ask why? With the exception of the off-grid users, the use of PV solar is absolutely transparent to its users, If the local user demand is greater than the PV output, the grid supplies the rest. If the local user demand is less than the PV output then the excess goes to the grid. No storage is needed.

The missing link is who controls/what to do with, the PV output when conditions on the grid prohibit the absorption of the excess solar energy. The proponents of storage (and it appears that Nicole is one of them, click on her "energy storage" link to see where it goes) argue that not storing the excess energy is wasteful since it could be put into good use at a later time, while conveniently forgetting that 1.) this is a rare occurrence, 2.) that the cost of the "lost" power is miniscule relative to the cost of the storage system required to capture it, and 3.) that delaying PV installations until the storage "question" is answered results in the "non-capture" orders of magnitude more energy.

While Nicole is out blogging on behalf of storage, and wondering "...about what form it will take when it arrives in the industry...", she seems to be unaware of what is happening as utilities answer the question for her. Here's what PSE&G is doing in NJ:

PSE&G's Solar 4 All Program is installing 40 MWs on company owned utility poles. These panels connect directly to their distribution lines, have no storage, and are remotely monitored and controlled in a central facility. It's basically a 2.5 x 5 ft. panel that generates about 235 watts, with an inverter and a radio link for metering and control.

There's no problems with tariffs, kWh meters running backwards, load control, things wearing out, safety, customer/aesthetic concerns, or anything else that others say hinders the wide-scale adoption of PV solar.

Everyone wins, solar doesn't go to the privileged few who can afford it, every customer gets the benefit of solar without the fuss, and the utility can adjust the output just like they do at every generating station. And get this, NJ has approximately 93 sunny days, 122 days of partial sun, and about a third of the year with obscuring cloud cover. Solar is here, now, and coming to a pole near you!

The out put of PV system could be increased by proper design(globe form on which sunlight can fall from all directions) & proper lay out(like branches in trees growing in all directions)too.

Globes are not efficient solar collectors unless there are mirrors focusing on all the surfaces. A globe only has one point that is perpendicular to the sun at any given time, all other rays are at some incident angle less than 90° so that they receive less than the full amount of energy in the ray, plus a globe is self shadowing for half of its surface.

The incident energy from the surrounding environment (albedo) is quite low unless you are on water or snow, which can in fact cause the overheating of the modules.

In Japan they tried and found satisfactory. You don't need mirrors to reflect sunlight but it can reflect on other polished/shiny objects located accordingly too. In UK recently there was a report of "car burning buildings" on which sunlight reflects and concentrate on bicycle seats,components of car,blistering paints,glaring car drivers etc

OP needs to improve both propaganda's rhetorical style and fluency in doublespeak.

Please help me find Nicole's blog

>> If "celebrity endorsements" are any indication of the

>> legitimacy of the movement

they're not -- unless illegitimacy is now a kind of legitimacy. (it's not).

>> These projects are a very telling indicator of the rising success of solar power

No. Those are attempts and some are thought projects.

>> too small, and there will be no power to draw from

>> in an emergency situation or natural disaster.

The sensible will have on-demand generators using fuel.

>> environmental impact of [batteries]

Is comically high.

>> When companies that provide a competing product

That's NOT now with abounding subsidies.

>> The demands of their customer base and government requirements aren't yet at play

They're at odds. Customer demand is a market force. Government regulation is market-debilitating.

>> lack of solar energy storage is severely impacting the adoption and acceptance of solar power in the UK

Or maybe it's merely undesirable? No, that couldn't be. Everyone necessarily wants to spend from their respective hefty personal financial surplus to buy into directly capture solar energy! Especially poor people!

>> to woo new subscribers ... a case needs to be made

"Why you should be happy to pay even more for your power"

Good luck with that.

>> With solar power gaining footholds

nope. If it was it wouldn't need such delightfully errant propagandizing.

>> already scrambling

>> with an eye on
>> With these trends

What trends? where? scrambling to find enough money to feed your kids after paying the solar captured power bill?

>> doesn't seem to be a question of if solar energy is necessary,

Where did you demonstrate the necessity? (you didn't)