This updated edition explores the critical field of energy storage technologies in today’s evolving energy landscape. It serves as an essential reference describing various methods of storing energy in the context of renewable energy integration and efficient resource utilization.
Energy Storage: Systems and Components, Second Edition, provides a thorough examination of current storage technologies and analytical frameworks. The book explores systems using electrochemical transformations, classical battery storage elements, flow batteries, fuel cells and hydrogen storage while also investigating storage systems based on physical principles such as gravitational potential forces, air compression and rotational kinetic energy. The book begins with generalities on energy storage systems, establishing fundamental parameter sets for analyzing efficiency and performance characteristics, with special attention to usable energy density across different technologies. It then methodically reviews major storage technologies with detailed technical descriptions and models, covering everything from physics-based solutions like mechanical gravitational systems and pumped hydro to compressed air storage, various electrochemical solutions and chemical transformations. This new edition includes expanded sections on emerging topics like e-methanol production, synfuels for seasonal storage and dry gravitational technology. Readers will benefit from the inclusion of Ragone plot theory, which enables evaluation of real energy release potential relative to power dependency during discharge processes.
This book is ideally suited for practicing engineers and researchers in the energy domain who need comprehensive technical information on storage applications and design principles. It also serves engineering students studying energy systems, renewable integration and storage technologies, providing them with fundamental concepts and practical exercises to enhance understanding.
Alfred Rufer has been a full professor and head of the industrial Electronics Laboratory EPFL since 1996. He received the M.S. degree from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL), Lausanne, Switzerland, in 1976. In 1978 he joined ABB where he was involved in the fields of high-power electronics and control. In 1993 he became an Assistant Professor at EPFL. He has authored or coauthored more than 200 publications on power electronics and applications, and he holds several patents. He was elected to the IEEE Fellow grade in 2006. Dr. Rufer's research activities focus on one hand on power converters as modular multilevel converters in asymmetric or hybrid technologies, and energy storage. Recently he has presented research for low aging, easy to recycle, hybrid energy storage device based on compressed air.
