Energy Storage

[Peter Sotropa]

What are other methods of excess power storage besides a battery?

[Joe Blake]

The scale might be a bit large for a domestic setting, but gravity storage looks like it might have a future.

Energy Vault 2019 3D Tower Simulation (4k) - YouTube

Converting the water to heat in water for showers etc.

I live in Western Australia where it's pretty dry and I store excess energy by using a water condensing and filtering machine to pull water out of the air and drinking it.

[Peter Sotropa]

Yes, I saw this a few weeks ago and it got me thinking. I contacted Clean Technology Program in Canada to discuss the idea I have. They put me in contact with a group in Waterloo Ontario. I am hoping to have them create a Solid Edge prototype.

[Rob Beckers]

There is flywheel energy storage as well. Some company makes a commercial solution. You can convert energy to hydrogen, another way to store it (not the easiest!). Pumping water up, essentially gravity storage, that's done at utility scales by pumping water from a lower to a higher lake when there's excess production. And the list goes on.

By the way, many seem to think that hydrogen is a (green) energy source in its own right. That's not really the case, we don't have all that much freely available hydrogen on this planet. It's (at best) an energy storage medium much like a battery, as it has to be produced from other energy sources, currently mostly from natural gas and not at all 'green'. But that's another topic...

-RoB-

[Peter Sotropa]

There is flywheel energy storage as well. Some company makes a commercial solution. You can convert energy to hydrogen, another way to store it (not the easiest!). Pumping water up, essentially gravity storage, that's done at utility scales by pumping water from a lower to a higher lake when there's excess production. And the list goes on.


-RoB-

Indeed,after a patent search I did find that the list does go on.

[Bill von]

What are other methods of excess power storage besides a battery?
Also small scale pumped hydro. I have a friend who lives nearby who has a small stream on his property and a hill. He runs a pump during the day to get water up there, then has a small hydro turbine that runs at night.

Well, right now it's not working, and the tank is small - he wants to increase the tank size and get a more reliable Pelton wheel. But if you have property like this it can work.

[Peter Sotropa]

Also small scale pumped hydro. I have a friend who lives nearby who has a small stream on his property and a hill. He runs a pump during the day to get water up there, then has a small hydro turbine that runs at night.
But if you have property like this it can work.

The amount of energy used to pump the water up hill and used to turn the turbine seems more than the energy gained.

[Bill von]

The amount of energy used to pump the water up hill and used to turn the turbine seems more than the energy gained.

It always is. But that's true of any form of storage.

[Joe Blake]

Compressed air?

https://newatlas.com/energy/hydrostor-compressed-air-energy-storage/

[Peter Sotropa]

I have a series wound DC motor MO-ES-31B-2T. I wish to use it as a generator. My question is: If I attach a mass with a rope to the pulley on the shaft and drop the mass to rotate the shaft, will the RPM of the shaft remain constant or will the RPM increase until a terminal velocity is reached?
https://www.greenpowertalk.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=1467&d=1620350942
https://www.greenpowertalk.org/album.php?albumid=38&pictureid=484

[Rob Beckers]

That would entirely depend on the load on that motor...

[Peter Sotropa]

Since it is a generator, does the speed of the falling mass remain constant if the wattage of the item being powered and the wattage produced by the generator are equal?

[Rob Beckers]

Yes (if I remember my highschool physics correctly)...