Walk-in Energy Storage Container Sales Plan

When an energy storage system is required, either for off-grid applications, or for limited grid or to take advantage of off-peak tariffs in reliable grids, the choice must be made between thermal storage, electrical storage (i.e. batteries) or hybrid systems with both.

Energy storage components are typically used to: • overcome unexpected grid electric supply outages; • shift grid electricity consumption to off peak and lower rate times of day; or • bridge the gaps between electricity availability (e.g. planned interruptions, nighttime and cloudy conditions when reliant on solar electricity generation).

Batteries and their chargers (Subsection 5.4.3) and inverters (Subsection 5.4.4) are described for the former, thermal storage options (Section 5.5) for the latter. The two kinds of energy storage are then compared in terms of design of their components. 5.2 Options for energy supply and energy management

Autonomy Autonomy is the amount of time that a system (with or without energy storage, either thermal or electric) can sustain acceptable storage temperature with no additional electricity input. The autonomy time required at a specific site must be known or estimated to establish the design target for energy storage options.

When a store is to be used for a valuable and temperature-sensitive product, this may justify investment in an energy backup or energy storage with a long autonomy time; whereas storage of less sensitive or less valuable products is likely to mean that a shorter autonomy time is accepted.

With electrical storage the cooling system has not to be oversized and continues to operate normally with uninterrupted air circulation, air supply temperature and cooling power. However, batteries are generally costly over their life cycle as they need to be replaced frequently over the cold storage lifetime.