Transition Chesterfield

This is a really common problem with renewables: you generate most when it's light & windy and the rivers have high flows.  You use most when you come back from work.  Factories & major industry runs 24*7.

So, how to store the energy from the time when you generate it to the time when you use it?

Not an easy problem to solve - batteries work (but are expensive) up to domestic scale.  Pumped water storage only works when you can find a reservoir on a hill.  Even geothermal heat storage is tricky.

But some clever German researchers think they may have cracked it - generate standard natural gas (that would power heating boilers etc) from the spare electricity along with water & carbon dioxide. 

Sounds clever, but will it come off?

Watch this space...

More at: http://www.fraunhofer.de/en/press/research-news/2010/04/green-electricity-storage-gas.jsp

Cheers

Simon