Inside Renewable Energy Energy Storage: Will We Find the Holy Grail?

We'd all like to see a world powered mostly by renewables. But is it possible? With the right planning, we can develop a lot of intermittent renewables without storage. At some point, however, we'll need both short-term and long-term storage technologies to help stabilize the grid. Storage is often seen as the “Holy Grail” of technologies for integrating wind and solar. In this podcast, we'll have a roundtable discussion on storage and look at emerging applications, market opportunities and ask whether these technologies are ready for large-scale applications. Chris Tomasini, vice president of business development for Ice Energy, talks about the how company's thermal storage unit, the Ice Bear, can smooth out demand on the grid and allow for more wind to be used at night. Charlie Vartanian, director of grid integration for A123 Systems, talks about what the company's advanced lithium ion batteries can do to enable frequency regulation, long-term energy storage and electric vehicles. And Sam Jaffe, a senior research analyst at IDC Energy Insights, talks about the current and potential growth in the storage market today. Inside Renewable Energy is a weekly audio news program featuring stories and interviews on all the latest developments in the renewable energy industries.