{"id":179726,"date":"2019-08-28T08:00:50","date_gmt":"2019-08-28T06:00:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/innovationorigins.com\/?p=179726"},"modified":"2019-08-28T08:00:50","modified_gmt":"2019-08-28T06:00:50","slug":"top-10-emerging-technologies-10-storage-of-renewable-energy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/en\/top-10-emerging-technologies-10-storage-of-renewable-energy\/","title":{"rendered":"Top 10 Emerging Technologies (10): Storage of Renewable Energy"},"content":{"rendered":"

World Economic Forum (WEF<\/a>) asked a group of international technology experts to identify this year\u2019s Top 10 Emerging Technologies<\/a>. After soliciting nominations from additional experts around the globe, the group evaluated dozens of proposals according to a number of criteria. Do the suggested technologies have the potential to provide major benefits to societies and economies? Could they alter established ways of doing things? Are they likely to make significant inroads in the next several years? “Technologies that are emerging today will soon be shaping the world tomorrow and well into the future \u2013 with impacts to economies and to society at large”, said Mariette DiChristina, Editor-in-Chief of Scientific American<\/a>, and chair of the Emerging Technologies Steering Committee. In our constant lookout for the origins of innovation, IO will present WEF’s top-10 emerging technologies in a 10-part series<\/em>. Today: Storage of Renewable Energy.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

The whole series can be found here<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

If one types the word ‘battery’ into IO’s internal search field, the abundance of articles is overwhelming. It’s proof of the importance of, and of the ongoing quest for solutions in the field of energy storage. No less than 150 articles<\/a> on every possible shape and sort of battery. We wrote about hydrogen bromine flow batteries<\/a>, about lithium-ion<\/a>, about dry-film batteries<\/a>, about methanol batteries<\/a>, we even looked at a new class of electrolytes that enables a solid-state battery with a crystal structure that leads to geometric frustration for ions<\/a>. No wonder that WEF’s Steering Committee chose the battery as its tenth and final emerging technology.<\/p>\n

Energy in the back pocket<\/h3>\n

The way the world gets its electricity is undergoing a rapid transition, driven by both the increased urgency of decarbonizing energy systems and the plummeting costs of wind and solar technology. In the past decade, electricity generated by renewables in the US has doubled, primarily from wind and solar installations, according to the Energy Information Administration<\/a> (EIA). In January 2019, the EIA forecast that wind, solar and other non-hydroelectric renewables would be the fastest-growing slice of the electricity portfolio for the next two years. But the intermittent nature of those sources means that electric utilities need a way to keep energy in their back pocket when the sun is not shining and the winds are calm. That need is increasing interest in energy-storage technology \u2013 in particular, lithium-ion batteries, which are finally poised to be more than just a bit player in the grid.<\/p>\n