Your Feedback

Energy Storage

Thermal Storage as a Means to Support the Energy Transition

22.11.2021

Nowadays, many homes use solar collectors to provide them with warm water. During summer, when heating demand is not high, this works quite well. However, in winter more heating is needed, which is why thermal storage was designed to store a part of the excess heat for later use. Up until now, the excess heat was stored in large water tanks filled with hot water. The disadvantage of this method is that tanks have to be large as well as...

High-Capacity Heat Storage System

22.04.2020

Many processes where electricity is produced also release heat into the atmosphere. This potentially important energy resource often simply evaporates into the air without being put to any further use. Thermal energy storage (TES) is a technology that stores thermal energy by heating or cooling a storage medium so that the stored energy can be used for heating and cooling applications and power generation at a later time. Currently,...

Bio-inspired artificial cells for energy storage

30.12.2019

People have long been looking for ways to replicate biological machinery with non-biological components and artificially-created cells that fulfil a key biological function of transforming light into chemical energy. Now (2019), scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory have designed cell-like hollow capsule structures through spontaneous self-assembly of hybrid gold-silver nanorods held together...

Australian researchers’ calculations could help change the face of modern energy

12.08.2019

The key problem holding back the development of renewable energy is the continuous operation of solar and wind power plants, due to the natural characteristics of these resources. Currently, the most promising trend for ensuring continuous generation of electricity by stations of this type is the use of various types of batteries for storing accumulated energy in the form of pumped storage stations, thermal storage systems for molten...

Molten Chloride salts helping to improve CSP systems

07.08.2019

There has been increased interest in energy derived from nuclear and solar sources recently, which has led to renewed research efforts concerning the application of high temperature molten salts in nuclear and solar power stations. At first glance, nuclear energy and solar power seem to have little in common, but certain kinds of solar power plants convert sunlight into heat which is then used to generate electricity, just like the...

Energy Storage Europa 2019

03.07.2019

Energy storage is of fundamental importance in the development of renewable energy technologies. Low capacity factor values combined with the unpredictability of electricity generation over time - as is typical of solar and wind farms - deter investment in the sector and lower its competitiveness, compared to fossil-fuel based energy production. In addressing the issue the 8th International Energy Storage Europa and the accompanying...

Solar Tower in Jülich. Credit: DLR (CC-BY 3.0)

New Tests Conducted on Centrifugal Solar Receiver CentRec

07.09.2018

Last several years scientists at the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches ZentrumfürLuft-und Raumfahrt; DLR) have carried out experiments to research the technological possibilities of the high-temperature centrifugal solar receiver CentRec they developed. The centrifugal receiver CentRec, as designed by the research institute, consists  of a rotating chamber which is fixed to a solar tower and faces towards a field of solar...