New Energy Knowledge | What Is Energy Storage Technology?

Energy storage technology mainly refers to the storage of electrical energy. The stored energy can be used as emergency energy, and can also be used for energy storage when the grid load is low, and output energy when the grid load is high, for peak shaving and valley filling, and to reduce grid fluctuations. Energy comes in many forms, including radiation, chemical, gravitational potential energy, electrical potential energy, electricity, high temperature, latent heat, and kinetic energy. Energy storage involves converting energy from a form that is difficult to store into a more convenient or economically storable form.

The technological development of my country's energy storage industry began in the 1960s when my country began research on pumped storage power stations and established the first hybrid pumped storage power station - Gangnam Hydropower Station; by the 1990s, the construction of pumped storage power At the beginning of the 21st century, research on other energy storage technologies began in China, including compressed air energy storage, electrochemical energy storage, etc., and after 2010, the implementation of energy storage technologies such as compressed air and all-vanadium redox flow batteries was accelerated. , to accelerate the diversified development of energy storage technology.

According to the different storage media of different energy storage technologies, energy storage is mainly divided into mechanical energy storage, electrochemical energy storage, thermal energy storage, chemical energy storage, electromagnetic energy storage, etc. Using these energy storage technologies, electrical energy is stored in the form of mechanical energy, chemical energy, thermal energy, etc., and is fed back to the power network in due course.

Classification of energy storage technology:

Mechanical energy storage

The application forms of mechanical energy storage include pumped water storage, compressed air energy storage, and flywheel energy storage. At present, the most mature large-scale energy storage method is pumped hydro storage. Its basic principle is to use excess power when the power grid is low and pump water as a liquid energy medium from low-level reservoirs to high-level reservoirs. The water in the reservoir flows back to the lower reservoir to drive the hydroelectric generator to generate electricity.

Electrical energy storage

The application forms of electrical energy storage include supercapacitor energy storage and superconducting energy storage. Among them, superconducting energy storage is a device for storing electric energy made by using the zero resistance of superconductors. It can not only store electric energy without loss in the superconducting inductor coil but also quickly exchange active power with external systems through power electronic converters. and reactive power is used to improve the stability of the power system and improve the quality of the power supply.

Electrochemical energy storage

Electrochemical energy storage mainly includes various secondary batteries, including lead-acid batteries, lithium-ion batteries, sodium-sulfur batteries, and flow batteries. Most of these batteries are relatively mature in technology, and have become the focus of attention in recent years, and have many practical applications.

Thermal energy storage

In a thermal energy storage system, thermal energy is stored in a medium in an insulated container and can be converted back into electricity later when needed, or it can be used directly without being converted back into electricity. There are many different technologies for thermal energy storage, which can be further divided into sensible heat storage and latent heat storage, among others.

Chemical energy storage

Chemical energy storage mainly refers to the use of hydrogen or synthetic natural gas as the carrier of secondary energy. Use the wind power to be discarded to produce hydrogen, and decompose water into hydrogen and oxygen through electrolysis to obtain hydrogen. In the future, hydrogen can be directly used as an energy carrier, and then hydrogen and carbon dioxide can be reacted to form synthetic natural gas (methane), and synthetic natural gas can be used as another secondary energy carrier.