Seasonal energy storage using bioenergy production from abandoned croplands

Abstract

6.1 INTRODUCTION The production of electricity from biomass could provide a critical back-up energy source to renewable energy portfolios that are currently dominated by intermittent wind and solar energy resources [1]. The stored chemical energy in biomass can be deployed to produce electricity on demand, reducing the overall intermittency of a renewable energy portfolio. The storage capacity of biomass is particularly important for the seasonal intermittency of wind and solar energy which are not easily addressed by alternative storage schemes such as pumped hydropower, thermal energy storage, compressed air energy storage, flow batteries, fuel cells, flywheels, or superconducting magnetic energy storage [2, 3]. Seasonal variation in wind and solar energy production require much larger amounts of energy storage than required to address short-term intermittency in wind and solar energy production as well as energy storage over longer periods.