The most inexpensive way for LARGE Solar Storage

[mechster]

Mark,

Yes, that would be one big pond! haha  I looked at flywheels, hydrogen, weights, water and a few others I can't think of right now for storing energy.  $ per watt, it's tough to find something.  Sun seems the best solution, if you could make a storage that would last 3 or 4 days without sun, it would be perfect.

Mechster

[TechStuf]

Considering that the "average" home in the U.S. consumes 18.1 kwh of electricity per day, one might investigate the use of gravity as a simple means of storing solar energy.  Here is one example:

http://deciwatt.org/

It may prove an interesting exercise to calculate the increase in scale required to couple such a system to one's solar situation.  Many solar users employ two battery banks so that one is charging while the other is being used.  One of the cool things about a gravity system is that the full solar input can go directly to a motor which drives the lift pulley.  Variable load parameters could also be met relatively inexpensively as well.  Such a system could be quite hardy, avoiding many of the pitfalls of expensive and sensitive electronics, with many creative options.  For instance, when one's expensive and heavy lead acid battery bank has worn out, one can employ it as the weight source....lol.

Of course, if one is in an area where solar is problematic, but wind is fairly constant, a PMA generator wind turbine setup could be coupled directly to a very efficient and simple gravity PE storage setup.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HP3aAa_w2S4

[MarkE]

Considering that the "average" home in the U.S. consumes 18.1 kwh of electricity per day, one might investigate the use of gravity as a simple means of storing solar energy.  Here is one example:

http://deciwatt.org/

It may prove an interesting exercise to calculate the increase in scale required to couple such a system to one's solar situation.  Many solar users employ two battery banks so that one is charging while the other is being used.  One of the cool things about a gravity system is that the full solar input can go directly to a motor which drives the lift pulley.  Variable load parameters could also be met relatively inexpensively as well.  Such a system could be quite hardy, avoiding many of the pitfalls of expensive and sensitive electronics, with many creative options.  For instance, when one's expensive and heavy lead acid battery bank has worn out, one can employ it as the weight source....lol.

Of course, if one is in an area where solar is problematic, but wind is fairly constant, a PMA generator wind turbine setup could be coupled directly to a very efficient and simple gravity PE storage setup.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HP3aAa_w2S4

See the post above.  18.1kWh or roughly 65MJ, translates to about 6.6 million kilogram meters of mass * height product.  Don't get me wrong: For those who have the real estate, and a water supply to replenish evaporation and leakage losses, pumped hydro is about the cheapest way to store energy.  It's just that the real estate and water are not available to most.