Why Grid Energy Storage is so important?

The basic reason why grid energy storage is so important is to provide backup power to regions where there is lesser supply of power. The green grid energy storage also minimi8zes our requirements on the conventional sources of power and hence reduce negative impact of the human population on our planet. Today large scale energy storage through the smart grid encompasses all the other systems that are used to store electricity and make it available when it is required.

Storage of energy through the smart grid helps to maintain the electricity generation of power plants that burn oil, gas and coal. This helps to keep a good balance between the costs of producing electricity and efficiency. Electricity production and distribution becomes efficient when it is utilized jointly with electricity mad e from green resources such as solar panels and wind turbines. This will lead to the sound operation and less load on the continual operation of the power plants.

Grid energy storage hence allows the utilities to balance the production of energy and to sustain energy consumption for the present and the future. Let us have a quick look at some of the types of grid energy storage. The first type is the battery which is converted to a large converter to regulate the distribution of power. However the maintenance costs in this case are quite high and the batteries have a short life span.
Then there is the compressed air method which makes use of electricity produced from the renewable energy resource when consumption is lesser than production. The compressed air is stored in an underground system and the air is transformed into electricity when there is more consumption than production.

In case of the pumped water method there are pumps that pump water to a big reservoir when there is less consumption of electricity. When the consumption is high the stored water is used to produce electricity. This is today the most efficient power storage system invented. However this system makes use of tow, large sized reservoirs and hence it can’t operate in smaller places.

Last but not the least is the thermal form. This form makes use of molten salt to generate electricity when the demand is higher than production. This is a newer method than the other methods but it shows great promise in the future.