Energy Storage Demo Environment in Technobothnia

When discourses about the benefits that come with renewable energy sources come up, one cannot avoid the discussion going into the irregular tendencies of these sources especially with reference to solar and wind energy and the challenges that come with that. Unfortunately, the future does not have much room for fossil fuels, the era of renewable energy sources is here and will continue to grow. According to the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) renewable energy currently accounts for one third of the global power capacity and the share will grow to about 50% by 2050.

As the saying claims, desperate moments call for desperate measures and we are heading towards that. We cannot change the intermittent nature of these major energy sources, but we can learn to understand them and plan our new energy systems in such a way that they function as reliably as the conventional energy systems we are accustomed to. The key factor here is security of supply which comes with energy storage, store the energy during excess production and discharge when there is low or no production. Three universities, namely; Novia University of Applied Sciences (Novia UAS), Åbo Akademi University (ÅA), and Vaasa University of Applied Sciences (VAMK) have partnered up under the “Energy Storage in Our Future Low Carbon Society (Energilagring!)” project (1.5.2018-30.4.2020) to build an energy storage demonstration environment in Technobothnia Education & Research Laboratory.

The article have been published in Vaasa Insider (11.12.2019) and can be read in fulltext on the website: https://www.vaasainsider.fi/inblick-asikt/cynthia-soderbacka-energy-storage-demo-environment-in-technobothnia/