Large Scale Electricity Storage

Storing large amounts of energy is hard. This has been one of the major challenges for alternative energy sources, which generate energy at varying times. For example, solar panels generate a lot of energy during the day, but none at night, and wind turbines generate energy at extremely random rates. Sometimes there is too much energy from these sources, and at other times too little. But for these sources to replace coal and oil, they need effective storage.

Many ideas are in play here, including regular flow and solid batteries, but the most exciting emerging technology is even newer graphene supercapacitors. These supercapacitors can store large amounts of energy and disperse it quickly, far outpacing our regular electric batteries, and graphene makes an environmentally friendly and relatively cost efficient material for that. Development is ongoing, but the research is promising.