ELECTRICAL GRID ENERGY STORAGE: THE KEY TO IMPROVING PRODUCTION COSTS AND PROPELLING THE GROWTH OF RENEWABLE ELECTRICITY

摘要

The future world demographics and quality of life for developing regions will be highly dependent on the availability of electrical energy. New and existing renewable energy processes are being implemented around the world to provide the electrical power needed to grow economies and improve the human development index (HDI) for developing regions in the world. Within the established high income economy countries (so called OECD countries), use of electricity is actually decreasing due to conservation and overall efficiency improvements; however, the production costs have continued to increase during this same time period. A viable means of energy storage for large (≥ 100 MW) amounts of electrical power would aid both current electrical production facilities as well as propel the growth of renewable electricity. This review provides suitable background to understand how energy storage is an enabling technology for the power industry and critical to utilizing renewable sources of electricity. The presentation includes selected examples where advancement in materials and processes have improved the prospects for wide-scale application of energy storage on the electrical grid and a glimpse into how the availability of "on-demand" power generation will take electricity into the fourth dimension (time).