Combining Wind and Solar to 24/7 Power Blog

Mr. Stewart:

Why not use wind generated electricity to heat the thermal storage medium?

And why Thermal Storage? Perhaps only where geography or available water prohibits gravitational storage? Or perhaps because latent heat storage can reduce required volumes?

Given huge water management issues why not focus on hydro storage when possible; where the upper and lower reservoirs can be used for water management purposes?

Could hydro storage architecture use cleaned waste water for aquaculture and irrigation as well?

Grid integrated small unit production and storage greatly reduces the technical challenges of solar and wind energy production and storage. It also makes the macro system much more robust.

Perhaps the greatest problem with renewable energy and storage is the architecture of scaled centralized power production.

I still don't understand all of the pushback from the big players. If the margin between the grid sale price and small unit producer supply price were great enough then the ROI should be as good as centralized production. The distribution of Grid integrated Small Unit Power Production could be made to be as profitable for the big grid players as well as more physically efficient; both being a must for adaptation.

When scaled to point of use overall grid stabilization as well as storage become less problematic.

Imagine the implications of small scale production.

Imagine what happens to when railroad capacity is freed up for alternative products other than coal .

Imagine what happens to economic growth when energy costs go down.

Imagine what happens to consumer product demand when the bottom 98 percent have more discretionary income.

The simple reason I suggested a direct frictional heating is that there is a well-known conversion of mechanical energy to heat that is 100% efficient every time. The question would be coupling of this frictional heat with another thermal storage fluid sufficient in heat transfer and maximum temperature properties to safely store high temperature (high grade) heat. Then, when the "renewables" production lags demand, the stored heat is routed to steam generation, etc.

I could see the off-grid types liking this because it is basically very simple to implement. They might have to be careful not to wear out the friction plates, or to friction weld them together! The idea is the home owner would store the heat in whatever convenient system can be placed on his property safely. Then when he needs power, he would activate thermal recovery, steam generation, and power turbine, until done. Nothing hazardous, except heat and steam, and electricity.

I read on this several weeks ago, I still don't know what this mystery "cement like" fluid is or its BTU/lbs characteristics are but It sounds promising. just as all renew-ables generation isn't the trick, storage is

I gave everyone a GA! I agree that every answer is a "good" answer when it comes to storing up energy. I ran across a local company that is making energy storage from renewables even as attactive as a liquid fuel. Ammonia can be combusted in IC engines with extra high compression (and NH₃ is a smooth-burning fuel with high "octane" rating).

The company offers hydrolysis of water (new efficient design to be sure), separation of air, combination of hydrogen and nitrogen in high compression, high temperature reactor (catalyzed), with energy recovery, and liquid anhydrous ammonia as the product. They even have a new engine design linear piston engine with linear coil and generator that (1) starts the engine, (2) accelerates the compression of air intake, and (3) generates direct electric power on the power stroke. Valve system is unique from my perspective. They also offer a module to produce solid fertilizers for agricultural use. The system is very clean burning, and requires no oil (advanced materials robust enough, and ammonia combustion leaves no deposits). Ammonia is commonly stored in carbon steel pressure vessels, and it is not a problem when the normal safety precautions are taken. Not only that, there is an interesting connection with blending ammonia to gasoline or diesel, and it works too.

Storage of energy could be in many ways. As static head of water, as thermal, well insulated salt or steam, as chemical energy, as in a storage battery.

We have to see the advantages of various possibilities. Battery is the most useful one, with portability, ease of recall. Static head of water would require a large inundatable area, and as heat, perhaps most ideal for large scale.

One has to choose the best.