-5

I want to store 6 months of energy with one of these applications.

which type of system would be the best way to store energy for a house, which last for approximately 6 months. (heating/air conditioning included)

The solution should be easy to build, safe, and cheap of course.

average 6 months energy needs is 15,000 kWh (~50GJ)

Tester101
  • 131,561
  • 78
  • 320
  • 610
Mert
  • 101
  • 3
  • 2
    General rule of thumb - the stronger it has to be, the longer it has to last, the more expensive and complicated it will be. Cheap and easy do not equate to long lasting and safe. – The Evil Greebo Jul 02 '14 at 09:47
  • This is extremely broad, and your reference to applications is too vague. Books have been written on this general topic. – bib Jul 02 '14 at 16:21
  • 1
    Lots of farmland and let a pelletizable, combustible crop harvest the energy of the sun. – Fiasco Labs Aug 04 '14 at 21:28
  • I’m going to have to agree that the questions for energy storage are really too vague right nbow to comment although the 2 who have commented so far have some pretty good points in there for you already. You may want to refine what you need the energy storage for and in particular whether we are talking about heat, power or water... – user20232 Aug 27 '14 at 08:22

3 Answers3

4

I used to store 6 months energy for heating my home. The technology I used was cheap and compact and was in the form of a 300 gallon steel tank that holds kerosene. I doubt you can get any cheaper or compact than that. It's pretty safe so long as you regularly monitor the condition of the tank. Building is simple, you need to construct a base which is usually a small concrete slab with raised edge to trap spills and with brick piers to support the tank. Double-skinned plastic tanks probably don't require the same provision for spills, but they are bulkier.

The most efficient way to store energy is in a very large body of water high up. Constructing this is probably beyond most homeowners capabilities. Most on-grid householders subcontract this job to an electrical supply company.

RedGrittyBrick
  • 24,370
  • 12
  • 47
  • 90
  • 1
    1kg water at about 100m has about 1kJ, so 275000kg water at 100m is enough for a day. – Mert Jul 02 '14 at 11:37
  • 2 1/2 cords of firewood after doing a complete reinsulation, thermopane window retrofit and caulk job. Probably not as compact as the kerosene tank, but as effective. Back when I was interested in electric cars before the current battery technology and semiconductor controllers were available, I did an evaluation and found that it took 9 tons of lead-acid battery to equal the power of a 14 gallon tank of gasoline. The laws of physics eat into that easy to build, safe, and cheap statement pretty immediately. Chemical storage as a burnable fuel probably is the most efficient at this time. – Fiasco Labs Aug 04 '14 at 21:27
  • As a side note, my grandfather was a construction electrician in the crew that built one of those very large bodies of water, high up back in the day. It's in Canada and quite large. You need a dammable valley, or some such. And it's damnably expensive. – Fiasco Labs Aug 04 '14 at 21:40
  • @Mert - So, basically for 180 days, a container of 65,000 cubic yards (50,000 cubic meters) at an elevation of 325 feet (100 meters). And you'll need a really efficient turbine, so given losses, the water storage will actually have to be greater. – Fiasco Labs Aug 05 '14 at 03:46
1

Generally, it is not practical to store heat more than a day or 2 since there is no insulation available to prevent the heat to be lost in that time period. Even the best, a thermos or vacuum bottle, only stays hot for a day.

Fred
  • 51
  • 1
0

Although, pound for pound, hydrogen has the highest chemical fuel storage (sorry kerosene), and you can buy hydrogen reactors for producing electricity (like the Brunton Hydrogen Reactor priced for a reasonable $149.99), actually, thorium is probably the best (known) source of stored (nuclear) power. It's about 250 times more efficient than plutonium. And 1 lb of thorium has about the same amount of stored energy as seventeen thousand 300 gallon tanks of kerosene! Thorium is safe enough to hold, so you don't have to build anything to store it... talk about efficient! Of course, you will need an nuclear reactor to make use of it.

This is not as crazy as it sounds... here's a plan from Instructables for building one in your home: Build A Fusion Reactor. I mean this is what DIY Home Improvement is all about!

Also here's a picture of a thorium powered concept car from Cadillac:

enter image description here

Ben Welborn
  • 6,212
  • 5
  • 22
  • 48