Can you store the energy from solar power?
Question:
Answer:
solar energy in the form of light changing into electricity can be stored in batteries. Solar energy in the form of heat is often stored in water or rocks.
I don't believe you can at this time.
yes... its called a battery.
Yes it can be stored! Go to realgoods.com for more info! They are THE experts on solar living gear!
Batteries and/or capacitors. This is old technology.
Even better than storing the power (why would you want to, it's free and renewable?) You can sell it back to the power company if you can produce enough. Instead of them getting your money every month, they will send you a check! Of course this depends on your power company...Contact them to see if they are willing to pay for your excess power.
in batteries that is what we do all the time because
the Sun is in the day but we need the lights in the night
to store a lot we would need masive batteries ,that is still a problem.
Yes you can store the energy from solar panels. The only time I would use batteries to store solar energy, would be if I lived off the grid. The reason is because first, the technology is not quite hear yet, yes it will store, but it's not very efficient, and it will slowly lose it's power. Second it's not really environmentally positive to have a bunch of batteries, you can sometimes recycle these batteries, but it still has a negative impact. Depending on where you live, your power meter should spin backwards when you are away, or not using power, so you should be fine. If you are living off the grid, then it is something I would do.
Yes as a matter of fact there a several ways to store solar energy. The energy can be transformed into electricity and stored in batteries. The heat from a solar panel can be stored in large vessels of water. Certain types of salt have been used to store solar energy and there are even buildings that are constructed so solar heat is trapped in the walls of these building and used as needed. (HVAC TECH.35 YRS).
The answer is YES you can store energy from Solar Power and there are many ways to do it!
Electricity can be stored in batteries. Alternatives have been tried such as storing it as momentum (rotating flywheels) but a lot of these do not really work for long term storage. An electric utility here in Michigan has a "pumped water storage facility" .. they pump water up a hill from Lake Michigan with excess power at night and let it flow downhill to regenerate the electricity at high power loads ... its unique and not many places in the world are suited for it.. but it works for them. You could do a similar thing with a weight.. lift it up with power and let it go down when you need electricty, etc. Some of these storage methods are not really efficient but ...
One other thing is that from a residential viewpoint you can actually sell electricity to the electric grid when the sun is out (electric companies have to pay you for it) and then when you need electricity you can buy it back..(it is not really storage but it can be looked at it a type of storage.. ) although I have read that the costs may not be the same..
Storage of Solary power as heat storage is also possible.. . you can store the hot water, or in rocks in tanks that you run the hot water through, in underground pools or other storage media -- anything that has a lot of thermal mass. I remember there was one salt mixture that "freezes" just above room temperature (so when you want to store energy you simply melt it by adding heat and when it freezes it gives off a lot of heat at the same temperature).
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