Comments on: More Incentives for Thermal Energy Storage for Night Time Wind

By: Harryroper

Harryroper — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 19:16:00 +0000

My sister and her family lived in a cottage on the east coast of Scotland for ayar about 25 years ago. Their heat was partly an electricly heated box of bricks with a cover and maybe a fan. There is nothing new about this idea.

By: EU Invades US for Energy Resource – Offshore Wind | CleanTechnica

EU Invades US for Energy Resource – Offshore Wind | CleanTechnica — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 22:43:10 +0000

[…] homes. Islands off Maine provide more than 100% of its needs from wind at times. Previous story: Incentives for Thermal Energy Storage for Night. These projects are the result of Maine’s excellent coastal offshore wind potential.The […]

By: T

Mon, 21 Feb 2011 12:23:52 +0000

It is possible, but costs much money and if you count it it may cost much more than the present project.

By: Larry

Larry — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 23:40:58 +0000

A better way of storing this surplus electricity as thermal energy may be with large-scale underground thermal energy storage (UTES) that could be part of district heating systems or for large buildings or building complexes. I think this would provide better economy of scale, and more importantly allows inter-seasonal energy storage.

There are two types of UTES: in aquifers (ATES) as open-loop systems and in borehole fields (BTES) as closed-loop systems. ATES works only in particular geological situations, but BTES can be done essentially anywhere (e.g. from unconsolidated sediments to hard rock). A very large UTES can store thermal enery for even several months with only a small energy loss.

Paybacks can be quite short: often 4 to 6 years, and 10 to 12 years on the long side.

Also, UTES can be used for storing either cold or heat, such as puttng away winter’s cold for use in summer, and storing waste wind power any time of the year for use in the heating season.