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Topics in energy storage
Summary
Energy storage is the capture of energy produced at one time for use at a later time to reduce imbalances between energy demand and energy production. A device that stores energy is generally called an accumulator or battery. Energy comes in multiple forms including radiation, chemical, gravitational potential, electrical potential, electricity, elevated temperature, latent heat and kinetic. Energy storage involves converting energy from forms that are difficult to store to more conveniently or economically storable forms.
Some technologies provide short-term energy storage, while others can endure for much longer. Bulk energy storage is currently dominated by hydroelectric dams, both conventional as well as pumped. Grid energy storage is a collection of methods used for energy storage on a large scale within an electrical power grid.
Common examples of energy storage are the rechargeable battery, which stores chemical energy readily convertible to electricity to operate a mobile phone; the hydroelectric dam, which stores energy in a reservoir as gravitational potential energy; and ice storage tanks, which store ice frozen by cheaper energy at night to meet peak daytime demand for cooling. Green hydrogen, from the electrolysis of water, is a more economical means of long-term renewable energy storage in terms of capital expenditures than pumped-storage hydroelectricity or batteries. Fossil fuels such as coal and gasoline store ancient energy derived from sunlight by organisms that later died, became buried and over time were then converted into these fuels. Food (which is made by the same process as fossil fuels) is a form of energy stored in chemical form.
In the 20th century grid, electrical power was largely generated by burning fossil fuel. When less power was required, less fuel was burned. Hydropower, a mechanical energy storage method, is the most widely adopted mechanical energy storage, and has been in use for centuries. Large hydropower dams have been energy storage sites for more than one hundred years.
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