ORLANDO, USA - The technology can help communities become more resilient and aid utility companies in balancing out consumer power demands by storing excess energy from sources

Back to the Future movie fans may remember the term "flux capacitor" as a fictional device that allows for time travel. That device still doesn't exist, but according to University of Central Florida storage technology they do use a different type of flux capacitor developed by NASA.

While trying to find a way to store renewable energy (like solar and wind) and then use it when needed, UCF Pegasus Professor Jayanta Kapat and researchers Marcel Otto and Ladislav Vesely found that NASA's Cryogenic Flux Capacitor (CFC) could be part of the solution.

According to the UCF team they recently invented a way to cost-efficiently convert excess renewable energy to hydrogen and oxygen and store it long-term -- days, weeks or even months. Later, when the energy is needed, it's reconverted and added to the electrical grid. That on-demand capability enables power companies to meet and balance the energy needs of a community not just from day to day, but from season to season.

Kapat, who directs the UCF Center for Advanced Turbomachinery and Energy Research, says that lithium battery systems are fine for short periods -- a few hours to a day.

"But suppose a hurricane comes and causes a blackout for a week?" he says. "Or it's a very bad winter out West and they do not have a lot of renewable resources?"

"It's not just about having the morning to night kind of storage, but it is from one season to another season kind of storage too," he says. "Summer could be a time when you've got excess energy, like solar, and winter could be a time when you need the energy."

Source: UFCTODAY