Gençer Emre, Agrawal Rakesh

The inevitable depletion of fossil resources and increasing atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations demonstrate the need for renewable energy conversion technologies for a sustainable economy. Intermittencies and variability in availability of renewable energy sources are the challenges for uninterrupted energy supply, which can be overcome by large scale energy storage facilities. Pumped hydroelectric energy storage is an efficient but a very low energy density energy storage method that dominates the current energy storage market with ~96% share. The paper presents a recently developed potential solution for large scale efficient and dense energy storage: closed loop carbon storage cycles and a specific example dimethyl ether storage cycle.