Efficiency of lava energy storage

Can volcanic rocks store energy?

John Kosowatz is senior editor. A large electrothermal energy storage project in Hamburg, Germany, uses heated volcanic rocks to store energy. Siemens Gamesa, the company behind the pilot project, says it’s a cost-effective and scalable solution to store renewable energy.

What are the performance parameters of energy storage capacity?

Our findings show that energy storage capacity cost and discharge efficiency are the most important performance parameters. Charge/discharge capacity cost and charge efficiency play secondary roles. Energy capacity costs must be ≤US$20 kWh –1 to reduce electricity costs by ≥10%.

Can energy storage technologies help a cost-effective electricity system decarbonization?

Other work has indicated that energy storage technologies with longer storage durations, lower energy storage capacity costs and the ability to decouple power and energy capacity scaling could enable cost-effective electricity system decarbonization with all energy supplied by VRE 8, 9, 10.

Can geothermal energy storage be used in large-scale energy storage?

The Geothermal Energy Storage concept has been put forward as a possibility to store renewable energy on a large scale. The paper discusses the potential of UTES in large-scale energy storage and its integration with geothermal power plants despite the need for specific geological formations and high initial costs.

What is charge/discharge capacity cost & charge efficiency?

Charge/discharge capacity cost and charge efficiency play secondary roles. Energy capacity costs must be ≤US$20 kWh –1 to reduce electricity costs by ≥10%. With current electricity demand profiles, energy capacity costs must be ≤US$1 kWh –1 to fully displace all modelled firm low-carbon generation technologies.

How does energy capacity cost affect LDEs value?

These figures indicate that reductions in energy capacity cost (columns going from right to left) are the most crucial driver of LDES value, followed by increases in RTE (y axis from bottom to top in each subplot), followed by reductions in weighted power capacity cost (x axis going from right to left in each subplot).