Imagine a flywheel that drives a generator that is also a motor. During the day, the solar cells power the “motor” to run the flywheel in reverse, causing it to pull a very heavy weight up a tall shaft. Then, at night, the heavy weight is released, powering the flywheel - and the generator.
You could even ensure it gets “stuck” at the top until you wake up early in the morning to get your day stared. You release the weight and everything is powered by the flywheel until the sun comes up and the whole thing is repeated.
I like the water storage concept for wind energy as well and have seen a proposal to build a demo system. It would work with solar as well, but the difference is, since people like to live where the sun shines a lot, the solar resource is pretty good near large population centers. But the best wind resource tends to be in unpopulated rural areas, requiring expensive transmission lines to take the power to where it is needed. Using wind to pump water into an elevated storage reservoir and then generating hydro power when the wind isn’t blowing seems to make sense conceptually at least.
Rooftop solar is fine too, as long as you apply actual facts rather than the opinions of the FR energy engineers.
IMHO long term energy storage has two somewhat promising solutions. 1) Battery storage getting cheaper and better, and 2) hydrogen storage (creating hydrogen with an electrolyzer powered by solar during excess power days, then later using the hydrogen gas to make electricity when solar is down).
I could see the two working together (batteries for short-term storage and hydrogen for long-term storage).
The catch is that hydrogen storage would be hard to do decentralized (at your home, not the big gubment Dims demanding power companies do it). Maybe if you put the hydrogen tank underground and you have a large yard away from the house (I do) it'd be safe. But it has to be decentralized or it's worthless like all other "green" energy projects.
My home solar and battery system is much more efficient than any utility's solar system because mine wasn't designed to meet some regulations to avoid some fine or get some stimulus or be good PR or whatever. Mine was designed for my family's energy habits in my house's situation with a cost/payoff analysis that fits my financial plan. Of the few people who put solar onto their house, most people do it with those efficiency demands in mind just like I did. That's why I think decentralized green energy is the only way to go with it.
My solar system currently produces about half of all the power I need in my all-electric house. When my solar system pays for itself in 10 years (assuming a 3% inflation rate for power rates and 3% inflation rate for the natural gas rate I'm avoiding by going all-electric) I'll still have 9 years left on the warranty for my batteries and 15 years on my solar panels. On the months that my power bill and HELOC bill (where most of the money came from for this project) combined is lower than the $310 I used to spend on both power and natural gas, I put the extra I save into a small investment account (why pay down the HELOC early when plain mutual fund investing gets a much greater return than the 2% interest rate of the HELOC, kind of like some people don't pay extra on the mortgage but instead put that extra into investments). When my power bill + HELOC is more than $310 I pull what I need from the solar investment account. That keeps me on a steady $310 per month "energy" budget like I had before going solar and all-electric. Basically I'm not trying to cut on costs so to speak as much as I'm using it as a hedge against runaway inflation -- particularly the energy cost inflation the Dims are putting onto us.
If I keep doing that for the 19 years of my warranty for my batteries, that'll mean 9 years of growth in the solar investment account after the solar system has paid for itself. Assuming a 10% inflation rate it'll be about $70K to $75K when it's time to replace the solar batteries. That's more than twice what my solar system cost (3 times that after the tax credit).
Assuming solar costs are the same then (that's pessimistic since at least so far the solar stuff is like computers: much better year after year without the cost going up by a lot) then I'll be able to replace my old system with twice the solar panel capacity and five times the battery storage capacity plus add to it two 10kW propane powered generators that I would use only one of on average of about 1.5 hours per month (the 2nd generator would be a backup) and I could be energy independent if I wanted to. Basically, in respect to the article's main point, I wouldn't be one of the ones demanding power when it's tough to provide while at the same time not helping pay into the power to help fund the power plants on days I have good solar. If something like hydrogen electrolyzer/storage is feasible by then I might incorporate that into it.
But that's me using my solar advantage of living in the south to help me prepare a long-term financial hedge in case the control freak Dims keep doing with energy what they've been doing and promise to do even more of. And that's without it impacting my budget because almost all of this is paid for with a low interest rate HELOC that my solar system in the first year is making the payments for. Obviously as the HELOC is paid down, the minimum payment goes down too and eventually I won't have a month at any time in the year when my solar system isn't paying for itself. When that day comes, every month will be a month the solar system is giving me "free" money to invest.
By the way, that's without putting excess power onto the grid to get "paid" for that. That's a scam. They'd pay me about $8.50 per month on average this past year, but charge me $67.51 (including 4% tax) per month just for the privilege of participating in the buyback program.
Perpetual motion. It doesn’t work.