The aim of the group is to develop cost-competitive technologies for electricity and thermal energy storage. The work ranges from the development of the storage technologies to their integration into the wider energy system.
Due to the increase in intermittent renewable energy in the electricity grid, energy storage systems are necessary to balance the mismatch between energy supply and demand and to enable the substitution of fossil fuels. While energy storage has been employed in the form of ice storage for millennia, the widespread deployment of intermittent renewable energy requires a concerted effort in the research and deployment of energy storage technologies.
Theme leader: Daniel Friedrich
Research Challenges:
- Energy storage must be shown to be effective and cost-competitive
- Integration of generation, storage and demand management
- Large range of storage technologies
- Large range of different scenarios
- From large scale electricity generation to distributed generation to the end user
- Response times from seconds to hours
- Discharge duration from minutes to months
Investigated Storage Technologies:
- Compressed Air Energy Storage (CAES)
- Ocean Renewable Energy Storage (ORES)
- Power-to-Fuel
- Thermal Energy Storage (TES)
