[ExI] The silent PV revolution

[BillK]

2012/3/30 Alfio Puglisi wrote:
> What is the form of this storage? I thought that batteries (li-ion or
> whatever) couldn't be scaled up enough.
>
>


Siemens says 'Hydrogen Storage'.
<http://www.technologyreview.com/energy/40001/>

Hydrogen Storage Could Be Key to Germany's Energy Plans
No other means of storing energy may be able to reach the scale
required to run Germany on solar and wind power.

    Thursday, March 29, 2012    By Kevin Bullis

If Germany is to meet its ambitious goals of getting a third of its
electricity from renewable energy by 2020 and 80 percent by 2050, it
must find a way to store huge quantities of electricity in order to
make up for the intermittency of renewable energy.

Siemens says it has just the technology: electrolyzer plants, each the
size of a large warehouse, that split water to make hydrogen gas. The
hydrogen could be used when the wind isn't blowing to generate
electricity in gas-fired power plants, or it could be used to fuel
cars.

Producing hydrogen is an inefficient way to store energy—about
two-thirds of the power is lost in the processes of making the
hydrogen and using the hydrogen to generate electricity. But Siemens
says it's the only storage option that can achieve the scale that's
going to be needed in Germany.
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BillK