Storing Wind Power Energy in Compressed Air Tanks Could Change the World
 

http://ecorenovator.org/forum/attach...1&d=1401293622

An interesting idea. It doesn't sound real efficient, but if its cheap enough it might be viable.

Storing Wind Power Energy in Compressed Air Tanks Could Change the World

For storing wind or solar not connected to the power grid, this could be a viable option. In the photo, there are several couplings from the wind turbine and the electric motor. I can't help thinking how much that lowers the efficiency. On the other hand, if 100% of the power will otherwise be wasted, then why not?

There is a person on The Back Shed: Storing The Wind that said he has spent years using an air compressor driven by the wind.

Most sunny days my solar panels have the fork lift batteries on float by 1 pm. The charge controllers don't have a load to divert the excess energy to, so they shut the panels down. If I were to divert the load, it would be for the additional items still on grid, like the electric water heater and water well. Both of them together use about 8 kWh per day. I'm taking one step at a time...

When you compress air you lose about 50% of the energy to heat generated just from compressing the air.
Not too efficient.

If the heat caused by the air compression was recycled threw a heat exchanger the losses could be near zero , if I'm not mistaken ..

There are other storage methods, already tried and tested: pumped hydro is one. And grid batteries are starting to be used, with steady improvements in cost and capacity.