MIT centers, laboratories, departments and programs provide a multi-faceted approach to solving the world's energy challenge.
Energy storage
Energy storage, comprising a wide range of technologies with diverse applications, does not in itself provide additional primary energy supplies. It enables the optimization of how we use and deliver energy, expands our energy options and significantly alters the landscape of energy markets.
Large-scale, cost-effective electricity storage would permit more efficient use and distribution of energy as well as the broad-scale deployment of alternative energy resources such as solar and wind. Affordable storage options would make it possible to light our houses at night using solar power, supply industry with wind-generated electricity on less-windy days and run carbon-free coal-fired power plants at their optimal level, capturing surplus power at night for use the next day. Cheaper energy storage on board vehicles could permit the use of electricity in place of imported oil for transportation. There is a full spectrum of energy-storage applications with varying storage times and volumes and rates of charging and discharging, creating market opportunities for advanced batteries, fuel cells, flywheels, pumped water and compressed air, ultracapacitors and other technologies. Additional work is needed to develop affordable, large-scale electrochemical energy storage devices, supercapacitors for transportation and electro-chemical conversion.
