Who Needs Batteries? A New Way To Store Wind And Solar Energy

Source: Medium, Anthony Signorelli
Photo: Eelco Böhtlingk on Unsplash

Denmark is leading the way

Finally! There is an answer to storing the electricity generated by wind and solar installations at scale. People always claim that solar and wind cannot provide our energy because they are not consistent. This is true, but Denmark has an answer, and it makes a lot of sense.

Before we get to that, however, a little background is needed. The debate over solar and wind production of electricity always runs into a limit: both are intermittent sources of energy. The grid needs a steady supply of energy to remain stable, and society needs the grid to provide energy at a relatively stable pace — all day, all night, 365 days a year.

These two renewable sources have been limited in overall deployment by our inability to store the energy. They tend to overproduce when the sun shines or the wind blows, but at night or on breezeless days, nothing. If we could store the energy in batteries and take it out when we want it, the problem could be solved. The result has been a race to improve battery technology to make it more capable of storing and deploying energy to meet our needs. Many promising technologies are out there, but only the lithium-ion batteries we are all familiar with have become standardized so far.

There Is Another Way

In this TED talk podcast, Denmark’s climate minister, Dan Jorgenson, describes how Denmark is going to end the country’s oil industry altogether by 2050. This is a big deal since Denmark is the EU’s biggest oil producer. But what I appreciate is how Jorgenson’s plan focuses the minds of millions of people toward a societal level goal. That’s the leadership we need. Here’s how they plan to do it.

First, build as much off-shore wind power as they can — about 10 gigawatts, which is far more than they need. Denmark was the birthplace of wind-to-electric power generation, and it will continue to lead the way with applications of wind power.

Second, use the excess electricity in a process called electrolysis to create hydrogen, which can be stored and used in fuel cells. Electricity is used to split hydrogen and oxygen from water. Since the electricity is all excess wind-generated electricity, hydrogen essentially stores the energy.

Third, replace internal combustion engines of all kinds with hydrogen fuel cells — including airplanes, trucks, and industrial machinery. Although automobiles can operate by storing electricity in onboard batteries, today’s technology isn’t feasible to use batteries or electricity for everything. The batteries would be too heavy for the airplanes to lift, for example, and you may not be able to concentrate the electric energy enough for some industrial applications. Hydrogen fuel cells bridge that gap. This step allows the use of hydrogen to power these machines.

Fourth, use hydrogen fuel cells to power these machines that electricity cannot power. In effect, using the hydrogen in the fuel cells releases the wind-generated stored energy. No emissions from wind-sourced energy, and no emissions from the hydrogen fuel cell. Water and heat are the only byproducts of the chemical reaction that releases the energy.

In essence, the excess electricity generated by wind power will be stored as hydrogen to be used at a later time. It is brilliant.

Jorgenson’s plan acknowledges that for some applications, a fuel-based system will better meet our needs than an electric-battery-based system. Hydrogen allows us to use fuel without burning anything. Rather, it is just a chemical reaction that releases energy.

The Challenge — A New Hydrogen Ecosystem

The challenge, of course, is the creation of the total energy ecosystem that is required. Today, we have such a system for fossil fuels, and many countries are beginning to build an ecosystem for EV car charging. In the US, there seems to be far less discussion of hydrogen fuel cells, although Europe, and Denmark in particular, seem to be leading the way.

The outline Jorgenson is presenting is the basic production infrastructure. Hydrogen production only makes sense when the electric energy is coming from a renewable source like wind or solar. By using that electricity to power electrolysis, you get hydrogen. In some cases, the hydrogen can be used to go into the machinery Jorgenson is talking about, but it can also be used to store the electricity and potentially re-deliver it when the wind dies down. Hydrogen-producing facilities are likely, therefore, to become a regular feature of solar and wind installations.

To run properly, the hydrogen ecosystem must be far more robust, however. Hydrogen fueling stations must come online. Distribution for getting hydrogen where it needs to go is essential. Water sources are required — and remember, we have a growing severe drought in many places in the world right now. The need for water will require that we adopt a process that can use seawater, and technologists are working on this now. (When you use saltwater in the electrolysis, another byproduct, chlorine, is produced, as a revised system is required). Hydrogen production will need to be integrated with wind and solar installations. Cars and machinery that use hydrogen must be as inexpensive and easy to use as our current machinery.

Although we have a long way to go, Jorgenson’s vision is laudable. It is the kind of forward-thinking we need in the world — something well beyond next quarter’s profit numbers or last week’s poll numbers.

https://medium.com/illumination-curated/who-needs-batteries-a-new-way-to-store-wind-and-solar-energy