Energy storage

In the pursuit of green energy, storage is needed for 2 reasons:

1. To smooth out the intermittency of solar and wind power.
2. To store energy in electric vehicles without gasoline or diesel.

How much would be needed?

ev.battery

65.2 kWh

Energy capacity of the average electric vehicle battery

Useable battery capacity of full electric vehicleshttps://ev-database.org/cheatsheet/useable-battery-capacity-electric-car

world.cars

1.446 billion

How Many Cars Are There In The World in 2022?

https://hedgescompany.com/blog/2021/06/how-many-cars-are-there-in-the-world/

commercial_factor

2

Without this, we'd be calculating for just personal vehicles. But we also need to factor in commercial vehicles such as buses and trucks. These vary widely in size, and data is hard to find, so for simplicity sake, we just assume that they'd add up to about the same as personal vehicles - thus doubling total energy storage needed. This assumption is based on the fact that freight trucks are a somewhat smaller share of energy demand than passenger vehicles, but the trucks probably need a longer range.

world.cars * ev.battery * commercial_factor terajoules vehicle_energy_storage_needed (calculation loading) ^ This could be reduced by walkability and public transit (specifically rail).

other_energy.tfc

3290.73 Mtoe/year

Global energy usage, total final consumption minus transport and industrial

Source: Key World Energy Statistics 2020 (IEA report)
We subtract transport because it was already dealt with above. We subtract industrial because - in principle, most factories/industry could just run during peak sunlight/wind, needing negligable energy storage.

timescale

24 hours

How big the "buffer" of energy storage would have to be to be resiliant against weather fluctuations

The exact number could be up for debate. Join the discussion.

other_energy.tfc * timescale terajoules grid_energy_storage_needed (calculation loading) ^ This could be reduced by alternative heating/cooling systems for homes/buildings.