From: Investing in Renewable Energy by Jeff Siegel

ENERGY storage is a key component of the low-carbon revolution. It goes hand-in-hand with the Smart Grid in making the most of renewable power, which (as critics are quick to point out) can be variable in its output. High-performance, cost-effective power storage will go a long way towards solving this problem – which is why President Obama’s economic stimulus bill, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act 2009, includes over US$2 billion in grants for advanced power solutions.

The second part of this equation is that efficient batteries are central to the commercialisation of electric vehicles. And thirdly, building better batteries will lead to new developments in every kind of electronic device from powered hand tools to laptops.

According to a report from Merril Lynch (The Sixth Revolution – the Coming of Cleantech) energy storage is “the holy grail of cleantech and a difficult problem. Solar and wind become more than niche technologies if the storage problem can be solved”. At the utility scale, mass storage devices will change the economics of wind and solar power, making them much more economic. Utilities will be able to store power produced during off-peak times and sell it during peak day-time periods when prices are at their highest. Wind often blows hardest at night, for example, when demand is lowest. And about 50% of PV energy is produced when the grid doesn’t need it: shifting it to the evening peak of around 7pm would change the dynamics of solar electricity.