Comments on: The Debate on How Best to Store Solar Electricity Continues

By: Wilmot McCutchen

Wilmot McCutchen — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 23:40:00 +0000

How about power generation from the molten salt storage using, instead of water, a high molecular weight low boiling organic working fluid for an Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) waste heat power harvester? For example and background, see http://www.freepatentsonline.com/7980078.pdf

Photovoltaic panels also could benefit from ORC waste heat power harvesting because they work better when cool.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 22:54:00 +0000

While the debate continues, get panels on the roofs of our citizens now. Using it directly puts dollars in the wallets of all Americans and provides jobs. Getting it directly into the batteries of the expanding electric car market will store a portion of it too.

The reason it is taking so long to make desicions is that the billionaire developers and bankers can’t figure the best way to monopolize it. Look at the recent flood of articles on how investment bankers (Goldman Sachs) bogged down America’s desert area with phoney BLM applications.

All the trillions we spent on military protection for oil pricing was wasted. How silly!

By: Breath on the Wind

Breath on the Wind — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 04:51:00 +0000

“Debate” may not be the best characterization of utility scale energy storage. An inexpensive system that can be implimented anywhere and does not take up too much room will be a clear winner. Energy storage like energy collection and concentration is dependent upon what is available in the local environment. Caes systems seem well suited to wind generation especially if this means taking some complex machinery out of a tower and locating on the ground.

Moving molten storage to ground level also has similar advantages. A number of years ago I saw a proposal to replace the target in a power tower with a mirror that would reflect sunlight to the ground.

Graphite or graphene storage would be good especially if this encouraged a use for carbon mined from smokestacks of other power plants.

PV energy does not lend itself to thermal storage as this involves an inefficient change of energy from one form to another. PV also lends itself to a distributed system that would require less storage if the energy can be transmitted over long distances.

Perhaps the ultimate storage would be to transfer solar energy to a fuel that can be stored indefinitely, transported easily, and ultimately used without pollution. MIT has an idea on that as well: http://cleantechnica.com/2011/07/29/21st-century-stable-thermal-energy-storage/

It is all interesting material.