Grid energy storage is a way to store electricity for large scale consumption within a specific electrical power grid. As it turns out, there are cases wherein power plants produce more than enough energy for consumption. Whatever is not used, will be placed in an energy storage. In turn, when consumption exceeds production, the stores are used to supply the deficit.
In the past, energy storage companies used lithium-ion batteries for their commercial projects. While effective, the energy stored is only good for a short period of time. This is what the local governments are trying to solve. They need an energy storage that will not only allow them to supply electricity to a whole power grid, but do so at a longer period of time.
Towards the end of 2013, the California Public Utilities Commission approved the plan to add a 1.3 gigawatts of energy storage by the end of the decade. The city of New York also has plans underway for the biggest energy storage project: a 400 kilowatt-hour array of CellCube vanadium redox flow batteries in a facility in downtown Manhattan.
Compared to a lithium-ion battery, the CellCube is more cost-efficient because it is a flow battery. That means it pumps electrolyte into stacks of electrochemical cells. This process allows the storing of energy for many hours.
If successful, grid energy storage facilities will help sustain transportation and other critical facilities like hospitals fully operational. It will act as a backup battery to supply energy during a power outage caused by natural calamities like that of Hurricane Sandy.
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