Earth & Energy

This Novel Technology Stores Wind Power Under Water

Making sustainable more sustainable.

Published

4 years ago

February 4, 2022

One of the biggest complaints about wind energy was that when you had no need for it, the excess amount would just go to waste. While transitioning to sustainable natural energy sources poses a challenge in terms of the availability of energy at all times, new solutions to these are becoming more and more important.

Ensuring that the power is always on, and renewable energy does not mean power levels dictated by natural conditions of the day, teams have started to work on the issue. Now, a startup called Ocean Grazer had found a storage solution for it.

Ocean Battery Buried Schematic Credit: Ocean Grazer Presskit

What is the new wind power storage technology?

The main working principle of the “Ocean Battery”, as the company called, according to their press report, is like a “hydro dam”. As the wind turbines produce energy but there is no use for it, the energy goes to the ocean battery, “pumping water from underground reservoirs to the flexible bladders installed at the seabed”. That way, you can just use this as a flowing water source for your artificial dam by moving it back and storing the energy whenever you want. The principle is pretty simple and effective and is already proven with the actual hydro dam technology that is being used today. If you want a clearer demonstration, look at the company’s video prepared for press below.

Resolving the problems of renewable energy resources

While everyone wants a full transition to renewable energy sources for sustainability and environmental concerns, it is not a very easy task. These natural sources also bring some problems with them like inconsistency, sensitivity to environmental stimuli, hard to store energy, efficiency, and such. However, these are not unsolvable problems. Several countries and private companies are making attempts at resolving issues with the new recycling, energy, or sustainability issues like I have written about in some of my previous articles (Read: Breakthrough in Recycling: How to Distinguish all 12 Types of Plastics).

As researchers resolved many problems with existing fuel and energy technology, we can also solve future problems with renewable energy sources. The wind power storage is here, and that should be one step of many.