What do you do if you have surplus energy?

[northwichcat]

For one company in California the answer is to build a 'gravity train'.

Power grids encounter varying levels of demand throughout the day. When demand is light, excess energy is produced. The challenge for energy companies is finding ways to store this energy, so it can go back into the grid when demand is high.

But a company in California, US, thinks it may have the answer. It's developed something called an Advanced Rail Energy Storage System (ARES), which stores and transports surplus energy using a "gravity train".

BBC Click finds out more.

Link to video report: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/technology-44549962/surplus-energy-rides-the-gravity-train

 

[Lucan]

The amount of energy that device could store is a drop in the ocean in terms of electricity supply. I notice the video gives no numerical data, instead the salesman bangs on about how his stuff can be recycled at end of life, and that sort of talk sends my BS alert meter into the red zone straight away. You would need thousands of those vehicles to start to be useful.

 

[thebigcheese]

What a highly convoluted system. I though this had been solved already - pump water into a higher reservoir and when you need the energy let it flow back through a turbine.

 

[nlogax]

Go for a run?

Oh, I see. Isn't this why Tesla and the like are building energy storage farms?

 

[northwichcat]

What a highly convoluted system. I though this had been solved already - pump water into a higher reservoir and when you need the energy let it flow back through a turbine.

When the report was broadcast on TV there was a mention of Dinorwig in Wales by the presenter as being an alternative scheme. Do note that it's in California where the gravity train is being proposed, which can have desert like conditions in some parts, opposed to rainy North West Wales.

 

[STEVIEBOY1]

Go for a run?

Oh, I see. Isn't this why Tesla and the like are building energy storage farms?

I thought go for a run or do a load of press ups firstly, before reading the posts here, wrong sort of energy.!