How can energy storage help combat climate change?

In its ongoing Energy Storage Insights series, Azelio breaks down everything you need to know about storage technologies. In the final part, we look at how energy storage can tackle climate change and help us reach net-zero.

Climate change is here, and it’s one of the greatest challenges of our time. As we race to cut emissions sufficiently to stay within the 1.5°C pre-industrial level limit set out in the Paris Agreement, there are technological solutions we can turn to. One of them is long-duration energy storage, or LDES.

The time of fossil fuels is over

We can see which sectors of society are huge emitters of CO2 today. These include agriculture and energy use in industry, which often take place in remote locations, far from the grid. In these areas, and across all parts of society, gaining a reliable alternative to a failing grid and fossil fuels is essential to reducing the impact of climate change and decarbonizing our economies.

Until now, burning of fossil fuels has often been the only means of receiving stable energy in fringe-of-grid or off-grid areas. With LDES systems out on the market and commercially viable, this no longer has to be the way our communities and industries source their energy.

Connecting communities with clean power

As the world electrifies at an unprecedented rate, LDES is the key to connecting rural areas with a weak grid, or no access whatsoever. It works with wind, solar, and other clean technologies, storing energy for prolonged periods. For the first time, these natural resources become controllable. What does this mean?

When the wind disappears or the sun goes down, an LDES system like Azelio’s TES.POD (which belongs to the thermal energy storage technology category) can take over. It adds the control function to intermittent renewables by making these available around-the-clock, as electricity and heat which are dispatchable the moment the user needs them. That’s how LDES solutions such as TES.POD can supply the baseload – or the minimum electrical grid demand – using clean energy sources.

A widespread deployment of long-duration energy storage can achieve the global green transition, by delivering a platform for all industries to reduce their GHG emissions. With countries and companies setting ambitious decarbonization goals, LDES can enable them to succeed, and build a more sustainable society for all of us.