Los Angeles is home to some of the world’s most well-known attractions including Disneyland, Hollywood, and Venice Beach, bringing in millions of people each and every year. Many very successful businesses have also made their home in Los Angeles, including Google, SpaceX, and IBM. And, come 2021 it will also be home to the world’s biggest battery.
This gigantic, 100-megawatt battery, called Alamitos, is currently being built by AES Energy Storage and will be efficient enough to power over half a million homes by using its 18,000 lithium-ion battery packs. The move to create a massive battery is a move to be more efficient by utilizing renewable energy sources. There is not much point in us all harvesting so much renewable energy if we have nowhere to store it, is there?
By using batteries like this one we would be able to generate electricity when it was cheap and in low demand then release the accumulated energy when it is needed. This would alleviate the pressures of rising electricity prices, and we would be helping to save the environment at the same time.
There are other companies out there that have succeeded with effective energy storage but have applied different techniques than that of a battery. One way that a power plant in Huntorf, Germany balances its energy generation and usage is by using the periods of cheap electricity to pump compressed air underground, and then when supply is in demand it releases the air to drive the turbines that ultimately creates energy. Other companies such as the Solana solar farm near Phoenix and the Pedro de Valdivia facility in Chile use giant mirrors to concentrate sunlight onto a form of salt which is then heated to over 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit. The steam from the molten salt substance is then used to drive the turbines.
The Bath County Hydro Pumped Storage facility that borders Virginia and West Virginia also deserves to get a mention here as this 3-gigawatt facility supplies the power needs of 60 million people in over 13 states and has been doing so since 2003. It uses two giant reservoirs as its energy storage facility. When demand is low, cheap electric is used to pump the water to one reservoir and then when demand is high it is pulled back to the other reservoir, driving the turbines in the process.
With the switch to producing and using renewable energy sources worldwide, it is clearly evident that energy storage is a necessary part of the plan, and there is a various way in which it can be done. Now, it simply comes down to which is the most cost-effective, environmentally friendly option to using that will benefit both businesses and consumer. But, with plenty of companies willing to invest in this area, it seems we will certainly not be short of choices!
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