Metal-free energy storage

摘要

The adoption of intermittently available renewable energy sources, such as solar energy and wind power, to more than 20% of total energy capacity will require electric-energy storage systems to be deployed. For grid-scale applications and remote generation sites, cheap and flexible storage systems are needed, but presently the options are either limited to a specific geographic location (such as pumping water from a reservoir to an elevated level as a source of potential energy) or expensive (for example, conventional batteries, flywheels and superconductive electromagnetic storage). On page 195 of this issue, Huskinson et al. report a major advance in the development of economical energy storage: a 'flow' battery that uses only water-soluble, non-metallic materials as the electrode components.