Grid-Level Energy Storage

China leads the world in solar power. And not just by a small margin either. It has over twice as much solar power as the next highest country, the USA. Where do you store any excess solar energy? Answer: in ridiculously big batteries.

Sweden’s Enerpoly has flung open the doors to its zinc-ion battery megafactory in the north of Stockholm – making it the first manufacturing facility to use this battery technology at a large scale in the world.

The world's largest renewable energy and transmission project has received key approval from government officials. The Australia-Asia Power Link project will send Australian solar power to Singapore via 4,300 kilometer-long undersea cables.

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.

Israeli company BaroMar is preparing to test a clever new angle on grid-level energy storage, which it says will be the cheapest way to stabilize renewable grids over longer time scales. This innovative system lets water do the work.

This remarkable project promises to open up zero-carbon energy storage to a broad range of areas without huge hills, delivering 2.5 times the power of water-based hydro. A pilot plant has been greenlit, with full-size, grid-scale projects to follow.

A new industrial-scale “sand battery” has been announced for Finland, packing 1 MW of power and a capacity of up to 100 MWh of thermal energy for use during those cold polar winters. The new battery will be 10 times bigger than a prior pilot plant.

Fourth Power says its ultra-high temperature "sun in a box" energy storage tech is more than 10X cheaper than lithium-ion batteries, and vastly more powerful and efficient than any other thermal battery. It's hoping to prove it with a 1-MWh prototype.

Sage Geosystems has pioneered a new form of cheap energy storage that uses the Earth as a giant bellows, pumping water into underground fractures, then letting it squirt back up at 70% efficiency – or 200% efficiency if you also harvest heat energy.

Renewable energy grids need lots of energy storage – and EVs plugged into charging stations represent a huge, city-wide battery just waiting to help out. The Dutch city of Utrecht is about to pioneer a clever way to kickstart two-way charging.

Bill Gates-backed startup Antora Energy is preparing to roll out a containerized, modular heat battery, designed to store renewable energy at the lowest possible cost – then release it efficiently as electricity or industrial process heat.

UK company RheEnergise is quietly rolling out an interesting new approach to pumped hydro energy storage, aiming for a capacity of at least 100 MW by 2030. It works with small hills instead of mountains, making it relevant in many more areas.