Elsevier

Applied Energy

Volume 137, 1 January 2015, Pages 511-536
Applied Energy

Overview of current development in electrical energy storage technologies and the application potential in power system operation

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apenergy.2014.09.081Get rights and content
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open access

Highlights

  • An overview of the state-of-the-art in Electrical Energy Storage (EES) is provided.

  • A comprehensive analysis of various EES technologies is carried out.

  • An application potential analysis of the reviewed EES technologies is presented.

  • The presented synthesis to EES technologies can be used to support future R&D and deployment.

Abstract

Electrical power generation is changing dramatically across the world because of the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to introduce mixed energy sources. The power network faces great challenges in transmission and distribution to meet demand with unpredictable daily and seasonal variations. Electrical Energy Storage (EES) is recognized as underpinning technologies to have great potential in meeting these challenges, whereby energy is stored in a certain state, according to the technology used, and is converted to electrical energy when needed. However, the wide variety of options and complex characteristic matrices make it difficult to appraise a specific EES technology for a particular application. This paper intends to mitigate this problem by providing a comprehensive and clear picture of the state-of-the-art technologies available, and where they would be suited for integration into a power generation and distribution system. The paper starts with an overview of the operation principles, technical and economic performance features and the current research and development of important EES technologies, sorted into six main categories based on the types of energy stored. Following this, a comprehensive comparison and an application potential analysis of the reviewed technologies are presented.

Keywords

Electrical energy storage
Overview
Power system
Technical and economic performance features
Application potential

Cited by (0)

This paper is included in the Special Issue of Energy Storage edited by Prof. Anthony Roskilly, Prof. Phil Taylor and Prof. Yan.