Large-scale energy storage

Large-scale energy storage is like having a big bag of candy that we can use whenever we want. Okay, so imagine you have a lot of candy but you want to keep it for later. You need to keep it in a safe place where you can get to it easily. This is what energy storage does with electricity.

Electricity is like the energy that makes our toys and lights work at our home. But we don't get electricity on the spot. We need to create it with power stations that use things like coal, natural gas or wind to make it. Once it's created, the electricity moves quickly through power lines to reach our homes and offices.

Sometimes, there isn't enough electricity at a time when we need it. For example, when everyone uses power in summer to keep their homes cool, there might be a lot of demand on the power stations. But it's not always windy or sunny either, which means that the unused wind and solar energy goes to waste. That's where large-scale energy storage comes in.

Energy storage is like putting the extra electricity in that big bag of candy, but instead of a bag, we use things like giant batteries and pumped storage. With batteries, the electricity is stored in the form of chemical energy in the battery cells. When we need it, the batteries discharge the stored power back to the grid. Pumped storage is like having two big water tanks, one sitting higher than the other. When we have excess energy, it is used to pump water from the lower to the higher tank. Then, when we need the energy, the water flows down and runs through turbines to produce electricity.

In simple words, large-scale energy storage helps us save the extra energy when there is more of it and provides it when there is less. It's like a big bag of candy that we can use whenever we want instead of using all the candy at once.