Integrating energy storage with renewable energy systems

It is recognized that renewable energy sources need to be part of the energy mix for a sustainable future. However, intermittent renewable sources such as solar and wind need to be supported with other utility generation resources. In order to increase the renewable energy content of the generation, utilities need to have costly reserve capacity online. Instead of this central reserve, many researchers have proposed energy storage solutions that can be associated with the renewable source. Energy storage dramatically increases the availability of the renewable source and makes this energy dispatchable as needed, resulting in a dramatic increase in the renewable energy value proposition.