Grid

A new heat-to-energy converter has reached a record efficiency of 44% – the average steam turbine manages about 35%, for comparison. This thermophotovoltaic cell is a major step on the way to sustainable, grid-scale renewable energy storage.

California is set to be home to two new compressed-air energy storage facilities – each claiming the crown for world’s largest non-hydro energy storage system. Developed by Hydrostor, the facilities will have an output of 500 MW and capacity of 4 GWh.

The wheels are beginning to turn on an innovative new energy project in the UK. The 250-MWh CRYOBattery uses a cryogenic cooling technology to turn ambient air into liquid, which can then be used to store and release energy over long periods of time.

Lithium-ion batteries aren't necessarily the best choice for grid-scale energy storage. Researchers at MIT have outlined a new system they call a “sun in a box,” which stores energy as heat in molten silicon and harvests it by tapping into the bright light it emits.

With a focus on storing energy from intermittent renewable sources such as wind and solar, Swiss company Energy Vault has just launched an innovative new system that stores potential energy in a huge tower of concrete blocks, which can be “dropped” by a crane to harvest the kinetic energy.

Constructing a commercially viable battery from cheap materials has proven an elusive goal. Researchers from Stanford University hope to solve the puzzle with the introduction of an aluminum-ion battery that uses an electrolyte made of urea, the main component of urine (after water).