Renewable energy can be defined as the energy which is collected from renewable resources like tides, sunlight, rain, wind, geothermal heat and wind. The four major areas where renewable resources are used are electricity generation, transportation and rural energy services. The term ‘energy storage’ refers to the capture or preservation of produced energy to use the energy in future. It is crucial to understand that non-renewable sources of energy like fossil fuels are both energy sources an energy storage system. In order to reduce the environmental impact, the oil of gas industries of US must follow the Environmental Management System (EMS). The EMS can be defined as a frame work that enables an organization to achieve environmental goals through evaluation, constant review and improvement in its environmental performance (Teichmann, Arlt and Wasserscheid 2012). In order to gain environmental sustainability, the methodology that should be followed b the oil and gas industries are as follows:
Considering the fact that the mentioned industry is heavily investing in the renewable energy field and energy storage systems, it is crucial for the industry to gather sufficient information to critically evaluate the energy storage systems. This report will contain the merits and demerits of energy preserving techniques along with their commercial availability rather than the conventional storage system of battery. Apart from that, the impacts of these energy preservation systems and reutilization on the environment will be discussed. Additionally, the implementation of waste management involving these energy storage systems will be also discussed along with the life cycle of the products (Hartmann et al. 2012). Finally, cost-effective recommendations for efficient energy storage for solar-PV and Wind-Turbines systems and scope of development in the field of energy storages have been discussed in the report.
Discuss the positive and negative aspects of energy storage systems.
In this era of modernization, highly improved energy storage technologies offer the consumers with a good number of environmental and economic benefits. While initially, the idea of energy storage system was confined to AA batteries, due to the investment of Advanced Research Project Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) department, the concept of energy storage has broadened (Chen et al. 2013). Production of renewable energy is majorly associated with solar power and wind. In spite of the fact that these sources of energy are renewable and clean, these are not reliable since power from these energy sources cannot be produced if the wind stops blowing or during the absence of the Sun. Considering the fact that these two sources of energy are gaining importance to the energy economy of the world, it is crucial to invest on technologies that allow energy producers to store energy so that they can be released when required. This, in turn, will ensure a continuous flow of energy at the time of high demand, even when solar and wind energy is unavailable.
The electric grid, that is, the interconnected network which delivers electricity from suppliers to the consumers, does not possess any storage. However, an energy storage technology used by several countries is pumped hydropower. This system pumps water to a reservoir located uphill when electricity is available in an excess amount and then lets the water flow downhill when through turbines in order to generate electricity when it is required. However, one of the chief problems with this energy storage system is that this system can only be used in a limited amount of areas. The Government of UK is trying to develop new energy storage systems which will be able to store a vast amount of energy, will be highly cost-effective and can be deployable at any location across the world (Hartmann et al. 2012). This, in turn, will enhance the usage of renewable electricity to a great extent.
Apart from the above mentioned benefit, some of the crucial benefits of the energy storage system are as follows:
The above mentioned factors are some of the examples of Energy storage system, this technology does possess certain disadvantages that include:
Some of the negative aspects of using battery storage system are as follows:
In spite of the fact that battery storage technologies are widely in use across the world, especially in Germany and California, batteries cannot solve the issues faced due to growing penetration of intermittent wind and solar technology. Usage of batteries as renewable energy storage system will either become too expensive or incapable once the penetration of the renewable starts growing in the major economies. In 2015, more than 221-megawatt storage capacity had been installed in the USA (Larcher and Tarascon 2015). This amount is about three times more than what had been installed the previous year. Thus the steady growth of commercial availability of the renewable source of energy can be noticed. In order to replace usage of batteries as energy storage system, two new energy storage systems are emerging as a potential solution with long-term benefits. These two technologies are Compressed Pumped Hydro and Air Energy Storage.
Compressed Air Energy Storage
The second largest energy storage system that is expected to have high commercial value by the end of 2020 is Compressed Air Energy Storage (CAES). In 2012, a Boston based firm opened a pilot plant of 2-megawatt/500-megawatt per hour and in 2013, its representatives had made several trips to Australia in order to talk with renewable energy developers, utilities and government representatives about the mentioned technology. According to Peter Rood, the development officer of CAES, the energy storage system will work efficiently when the utility scale will be between 10 megawatts and 100 megawatts. This system needs ground storage which can be both men made or natural and is able to store the output of wind energy (Harsha and Dahleh 2015). Apart from that, it can act as a storage bank for thousands of rooftops saving solar energy.
CAES helps wind energy to act as a gas-fired power station. This is done by providing peak generation and baseload when required along with storing the excess energy that is produced in very windy days in order to use later after a week or even after a month as required. Thus it can be clearly understood that the mentioned energy storage system is not only able to replace gas turbines but is perfectly capable to make competitive performance with combined cycle gas turbines when the price of gas will be highly expensive. It is crucial to building wind plus storage for the upcoming years since a lot of thermal energy generating systems is ageing gradually. A general CAES is able to provide nearly 20 megawatts to 40 megawatts of storage for high power generating of 1 megawatt. In case of a wind project of 100 megawatts, an ideal facility needs to provide 200 to 400 megawatt of power per hour of storage (Larcher and Tarascon 2015). This facility can be provided by CAES at a quarter of the price of the battery. Apart from the above mentioned facilities, CAES can also act as a solar bank which in turn enables the households to store excess energy so that the energy can either e used when needed or be sold to other users to gain financial advantages.
Pumped Hydro
Another option of energy storage system which can replace batteries is pump hydro. It is the energy storage system that has been invented by National University of Australia and Energy Institute of Melbourne. Australia had pumped hydro as the key element in Hydro Scheme of Snowy River even in 2013, but the new strategic implication is to create a pump hydro which can be operated away from natural water resources and by using natural contours between two reservoirs which are at individual groundaltitudes. Several sites in Australia including Eastern Seaboardhave implemented pumped storage. According to several researchers, one of the best approaches is to pump seawater up to the coastal cliff tops like the Japan Pilot facility (Díaz-González et al. 2012).
The pump hydro was initially made to support nuclear and coal along with ameliorating their inability to meet the changes in demand quickly. The irony is that same technology is now used in order to reduce the usage of non-renewable use of energy. Some of the benefits of pump hydro are a reduction of overall electricity price, enhancing the usage of renewable energy and enhancing greed operations. It has been found that pumped hydro be produced from a pair of dams which are located near each other and have different elevation (Pickard 2012). However, scientists noted that the cost of this system is much more during the production of power through turbines, pumps, tunnels and pipe compared to the storage of energy that is lake and dams.
According to the researchers, not only that pumped hydro energy storage systems are flexible, efficient, they are commercially available on a large scale. In fact, pumped hydro can be considered as the only storage technology that is available in large scale compared to its competitors that include high-temperature thermal storage, compressed air and advanced batteries, due to its cost efficiency and technologically advanced features (Alam et al. 2013). Currently, across the world, more than 200 large pumped hydro energy storage systems are present and the total capacity of power storage exceeds 130 gigawatts.
It can be clearly understood that renewable source of energy does impose a huge number of sustainable positive impacts on the environment that include decreased rate of carbon dioxide emission, an efficient grid which is highly resistant to disruption, a new source of income for rural landowners along with greater usage of clean energy. Other environmental impacts of the above mentioned power storages are discussed below.
Environmental impact of pumped hydro storage
Pumped Hydro Storage, when compared to other major power storages has both unavoidable and significant social and environmental impacts. However, the impact of the mentioned power storage depends on the size of project. Somme of the unavoidable impact of pumped hydro includes water flow changes, water levels downstream of dam along with flooding of dam. Environmental impact can be further classified into three major parts, namely, Physical impact, biological impact and socio-economic impact (Steffen 2012). Physical impact of Hydro Pump include frequent and rapid water level changes, changes in filling of the reservoirs over the year, reduced permanent wetted littoral zone on short-term, changes in circulation patterns, changes in ice formation an water temperature, stability of the reservoir banks and finally , changes in landscape (Rehman Al-Hadhrami and Alam 2015). The biological impact of Hydro power storage includes higher risk of spreading of species, lower visibility of the water, increment in mortality rates for higher species. When it comes to socio-economical changes, some of the major changes evidenced are increment of aesthetic and recreational values and increment in reservoir fishing practices.
Environmental impact of Compressed air energy storage
Being one of the most developed renewable power storage technology, Compressed Air Energy Storage has several environmental concerns that need to be assessed before implementing the system. Unsustainable construction of the CAES facility not only results in the uneconomic facility but also can impose several harms to the environment. On the other hand, if CAES is constructed and implemented efficiently, it has the capability to impose several beneficial impacts on the environment. According to researchers, the environmental impact associated with the operation as well as the construction of CAES is less severe than that of the conventional electrical generating facilities (Singh, Singh and Kumar 2016). Therefore this power storage can be considered to be amenable to conventional mitigation strategies. On the other hand, uncontrolled leakage of air from underground reservoir due to lack of maintenance not only results in disruption of potable, heavily used aquifers but also render a costly facility useless. When it comes to the negative impact of CAES on the environment, some o the major impacts include emission of air pollutant, excessive consumption and discharge of water, excessive fuel consumption, land usage and noise pollution. Apart from that the local meteorology, geology along with the aquatic and terrestrial ecology also gets affected due to CAES. When it comes to the emission of air pollutant, CAES utilizes two third less amount of fuel compared to that of a standard gas turbine. It emits one-third of the total amount of pollutants emitted by a standard gas turbine. The air pollutant generated by CAES is within the Ambient Air Quality Standards (Ming, Kun and Daoxin 2013). However, scientists are working on further minimizing the generation of air pollutants from CAES. When it comes to water discharge by CAES, overflow from the cooling systems, and blowdown from compensating water reservoir, water discharge from treatment operations, sewage discharges and oily wastes from plant service drains and fuel storage are some common phenomenon which must be minimized to reduce the negative impact of CAES on the environment (Barbour et al. 2016).
Cost-effective recommendations for efficient energy storage for solar-PV and Wind-Turbines systems:
Considering the fact that lithium ion batteries are considered to be the best option to go for when it comes to solar energy storage, some other options are also available which are more affordable compared to the lithium-ion batteries. One of the much affordable options of solar energy storage is the Lead Acid batteries. This technology is used in off-grid energy systems and has short life as well as lower DoD compared to other types of batteries. However, these batteries are popular due to their high affordability and are chiefly used in home energy storage sector. Another solar energy storage known for its affordability includes the saltwater energy storage. Though costlier than lead acid energy storage, this energy storage system is a new entrance in the global market (Castillo and Gayme 2014). Unlike the two above mentioned batteries, this storage system relies on salt water electrolytes. Hence, saltwater batteries can be easily recycled. This can be considered as an added advantage for this energy storage however, being a brand new technology this energy storage system untested. When it comes to wind turbines storage, the compressed air storage system can be considered as the most cost effective and efficient option. This technology is used to compress air and store them in underground caravans for future usage.
Evaluation of the future development in the field of energy storage system
Considering the fact that usage of no-renewable sources of energy is decreasing with time, an increasing penetration of huge amount of low cost wind turbine and solar energy generation can be evidenced. According to the researchers, the usage of solar energy will grow by more than 20 percent and that of the wind energy will increase by 5 percent till the end of 2020 (Chen et al. 2013). One of the major goals is to develop a more efficient electric grid so that more amount of energy can be developed. Considering the fact that wind and solar energy sources are highly variable, in order to keep the grid stable, scientists across the world are working on developing tool for computing and controlling the grids. Apart from that, scientists are also looking for ways to develop better batteries which will be able to store a huge amount of energy even after fulfilling the criteria of being cost effective. In addition to that, experiments on developing renewable fuels are going on. For instance, two of the most recognized scientists of China, Chris Chidsey and Hongai Dai are working on developing ways of using solar energy to split water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen an use clean hydrogen gas as a energy resource for vehicles (Steffen 2012).
Conclusion:
From the above discussion, it can be clearly understood that renewable energy storage systems are highly crucial to enhance as well as maintain the usage of renewable sources of energy across the world. Considering the fact that till now, majority of the developed, developing and under-developed countries still uses nonrenewable sources of energy which are finite resources, it is crucial to promote the usage of renewable sources of energy. For enhancing the usage of renewable energy, concentration on bulk production of solar energy converters, without getting satisfied with the current technologies available is required. However, without efficient energy storage system, the bulk production of renewable energy will be highly ineffective. Several countries do not rely on the renewable energy due to its unavailability during the required time. This issue can only be eradicated by implementing effective power storages mentioned in the discussion which will be able to store a huge amount of energy for future use.
Reference list:
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