Storage Gravitational Energy for Small Scale Industrial and Residential Applications
1
Department of Production Engineering, Technology Center, Federal University of Santa Maria, Av. Roraima 1000, 97105-900 Santa Maria, Brazil
2
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Polytechnic School, University of Vale do Rio dos Sinos, Av. Unisinos 950, 93020-190 São Leopoldo, Brazil
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Inventions 2019, 4(4), 64; https://doi.org/10.3390/inventions4040064
Received: 27 August 2019 / Revised: 16 October 2019 / Accepted: 17 October 2019 / Published: 31 October 2019
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Thermophysical Approach for the Designing of Devices Inenergy and Biomedical Engineering)
Photovoltaic cells produce electric energy in a short interval during a period of low demand and show high levels of intermittency. One of the well-known solutions is to store the energy and convert it into a more stable form, to transform again into electricity during periods of high demand, in which the energy has a higher value. This process provides economic viability for most energy-storage projects, even for the least efficient and most common, such as batteries. Therefore, this paper aims to propose a storage system that operates with gravitational potential energy, considering a small-scale use. The development of this methodology presents the mathematical modeling of the system and compares the main characteristics with other systems. The dimensions of the considered system are 12-m shaft, 5-m piston height, and 4 m of diameter; it presented an energy storage of 11 kWh. Also, it has an efficiency of about 90%, a lifetime of 50 years, and higher storage densities compared to other systems.
View Full-Text
Keywords:
solar energy; gravitational energy; storage system
▼
Show Figures
Figure 1
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited
MDPI and ACS Style
Ruoso, A.C.; Caetano, N.R.; Rocha, L.A.O. Storage Gravitational Energy for Small Scale Industrial and Residential Applications. Inventions 2019, 4, 64. https://doi.org/10.3390/inventions4040064
AMA Style
Ruoso AC, Caetano NR, Rocha LAO. Storage Gravitational Energy for Small Scale Industrial and Residential Applications. Inventions. 2019; 4(4):64. https://doi.org/10.3390/inventions4040064
Chicago/Turabian StyleRuoso, Ana C.; Caetano, Nattan R.; Rocha, Luiz A.O. 2019. "Storage Gravitational Energy for Small Scale Industrial and Residential Applications" Inventions 4, no. 4: 64. https://doi.org/10.3390/inventions4040064
Find Other Styles
Note that from the first issue of 2016, MDPI journals use article numbers instead of page numbers. See further details here.
