• Question: How is electricity stored?

    Asked by anon-267549 on 11 Nov 2020.
    • Photo: Bradley Young

      Bradley Young answered on 11 Nov 2020:

      When we think about energy being stored we mostly think about energy being in one of its ‘potential’ forms, like chemical potential or gravitational potential. Chemical potential energy is stored in things like batteries or petrol or coal. Gravitational potential can be stored by pumping water to the top of a hill for example.
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      Energy can be stored as kinetic energy, for example by getting a massive wheel to spin.
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      Energy is also stored inside atoms as nuclear energy, this is how nuclear power works.

    • Photo: Andreas Korn

      Andreas Korn answered on 13 Nov 2020:

      As Bradley says we often transform electricity into a different energy and store that. Normal batteries for example tend to store chemical energy.
      The closest method to directly storing electricity is using a super capacitor, were we collect electrons!

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