'admin' pid='43034' datel Wrote:Is energy storage the new holy grail of a clean energy future? Energy storage can take the form of large batteries, flywheels, pumped hydro facilities, compressed-air energy storage, and many others. However, the exciting “new kid on the block” is battery storage, largely because of its relatively small size, modularity and rapidly declining costs.Is an Energy Storage Tsunami About to Hit California? : Greentech Media
The NPR Planet Money group just did a show on the history of lighting, drawing the relationship between artificial lighting costs in terms of hours/manhour worked vs economic progress. It ranged from something like a days wages for 8 minutes to something like a day's wages for 20,000 hours, with concurrent economic development. I'm headed for a place next week, a boarding school, with no electricity other than a gas generator to drive the corn milling machine for their tortillas and, now, solar to drive one of their well pumps. Sun goes down? No lights other than candles and flashlights.
The point is when the sun goes down there's not studying, no work, no progress. This is one community where cheap battery storage for lighting would likely make a hell of a difference if history provides the lesson.