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Ditch the Batteries: Off-Grid Compressed Air Energy Storage

lowtechmagazine.com

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Re: Ditch the Batteries: Off-Grid Compressed Air Energy Storage

#3
An added benefit is you could power your air-tools with something like this without having to convert to electrical energy. As a former off-gridder, that's actually a really big plus.

Another non conventional way to store energy is using gravity power modules (example: http://www.gravitypower.net/)

Storing hydrogen from electrolysis via solar panels also sounds interesting. Basically once your batteries are charged you start making hydrogen.

Re: Ditch the Batteries: Off-Grid Compressed Air Energy Storage

#4

Volvo diesel cars avoid turbo lag by storing compressed air. Not very relevant but interesting nevertheless https://www.roadandtrack.com/new-cars/car-technology/news/a2...

And Bosch uses compressed air to keep motorcycles on track (experimental tech) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ERowrZJyfw

Re: Ditch the Batteries: Off-Grid Compressed Air Energy Storage

#6
post #4

Volvo diesel cars avoid turbo lag by storing compressed air. Not very relevant but interesting nevertheless https://www.roadandtrack.com/new-cars/car-technology/news/a2...

And Bosch uses compressed air to keep motorcycles on track (experimental tech) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ERowrZJyfw

If you could point them backwards for a little extra thrust ...

Re: Ditch the Batteries: Off-Grid Compressed Air Energy Storage

#8

Lightsail Energy tried and failed to bring this to market - not sure whether this can ultimately outperform Lithium Ion Batteries, which have all the pressure of the electronics industry behind them.

I feel like they have different applications so they're not necessarily competing. Obviously compressed air systems will never have the energy density of a battery, but they could be much more reliable. It also scales up really easily, and I think that's where the sweet spot is - I've heard of people sealing off caves to make giant air storage tanks for these projects.

Re: Ditch the Batteries: Off-Grid Compressed Air Energy Storage

#9

Volvo diesel cars avoid turbo lag by storing compressed air. Not very relevant but interesting nevertheless https://www.roadandtrack.com/new-cars/car-technology/news/a2...

ABS braking does the opposite: a vacuum is stored that's used to release the brakes in short bursts.
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