Application of energy storage in integrated energy systems - A solution to fluctuation and uncertainty of renewable energy

Given the urgency of climate change mitigation, it is crucial to increase the practical utilization of renewable energy. However, high uncertainty and large fluctuation of variable renewable energ y create enormous chal-lenges to increasing the penetration of renewable energy. Various energ y storage technologies have been applied to renewable energy to handle the fluctuation and uncertainty problem. To enrich the knowledge about the effects of energy storage technologies, this paper performs a comprehensive overview of the applications of various energy storage technologies and evaluates their capabilities of mitigatin g the fluctuation and uncertai n t y of renewable energy. The main techno-economic characteristics of the ener g y storage technologies, including: super-conducting magnetic energy storage, flywheel ener g y storage, redox flow batteries, compressed air energ y storage, pump hydro storage and lithium-ion batteries, are analyzed. Moreover, supercapacitor storage, sodium-su l f u r batteries, lead-acid batteries and nickel-cadmiu m batteries are also discussed in this study.