A Review of Energy Storage Technologies for Sustainable Renewable Energy Integration

In recent years, the increase in the capacity of renewable energy sources (RES), along with the need to reduce the carbon emissions have encouraged researchers to investigate new technologies that could be used to fully exploit the production of RES to supply the energy system. The production of renewable energy is fluctuating in a way that is hardly predictable. Energy storage systems (ESSs) are one of the possible solutions for mitigating the effects of intermittent renewable resources on networks, allowing increased renewable energy utilization, and providing flexibility for managing future electricity supply/demand challenges. This paper presents the main components and applications of CAES / LAES/ Flywheel /P2G/ NH3 technologies, which are the most important sustainable systems for future. Additionally, some technologies such as batteries and pumped hydro storage, which are currently exist, have their own flaws, therefore we do not review of them. For example, pumped hydro storage, the most reliable and so far only economical storage technology available is extremely limited by few potential sites and strict laws on nature conservation. Moreover, production and disposal of batteries has major carbon emissions over their lifecycle – from procurement of raw materials to manufacturing, use and recycling.