SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
A Californian company proposes using weighted electrically-driven rail vehicles on inclines to store energy. At times when the capacity of electricity supply exceeds demand the vehicles would be driven up inclined tracks, and when demand exceeds generation they are allowed to run down, generating electricity as they fall.
This link includes a video that shows a prototype vehicle (which appears to be built on a conventional locomotive chassis), an interview with a promoter, and an animation of a "farm" of these devices. There is a shortage of hard data, such as how much energy could be stored, for how long, and how steep the tracks are, etc., but a quick calculation shows that some thousands of these vehicles would be required for them to be useful. The control panel for this prototype has a power dial that appears to go up to only 20 kW. The promoter in the interview focuses instead on how the construction material can be recycled at end of life.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday July 04 2018, @03:53PM
Energy is the potential to do work, power is the doing of work. What actually enters the storage is the doing of work, and as it as stored it becomes future potential work, and when it's released, it's released again as work. So what's being stored is power, in the form of energy.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves