The future of energy supply: combined energy storage as key technology

A system developed at TU Graz uses water as a storage medium for electricity and thermal energy. It can be used to meet up to 90% of our energy requirements - while producing zero emissions. Additional at the end of the text The idea is simple. A team headed by Franz Georg Pikl, a PhD candidate at the Institute of Hydraulic Engineering and Water Resources Management at TU Graz, has combined the advantages of pumped storage technology and heat storage using water as a medium to create a "hot-water pumped storage hydropower plant". The new system stores and supplies electricity, heat and cooling energy as required. A three-in-one system: how the innovative combined energy storage system works. The first element is pumped storage hydropower, a technology that has been steadily refined over the past 100-plus years.