Energy Storage: From Chemicals to Materials and More Ⅱ

Dear Colleagues,

The world we know has changed and developed exponentially in the past century. Central to this development is the increasing use of energy, mostly generated using fossil resources such as oil, coal, and natural gas. The current situation results in significant impacts, not only environmental (particularly climate change, which has started to show its devastating effects all over the world) but also economic and social, as energy utilization transverses all human activities. Many governments and international organizations have recognized the need to tackle these issues, resulting in the definition and/or implementation of various strategies to minimize the impacts of energy generation, for example, by promoting energy efficiency or by supporting the production and utilization of renewable energy. Concerning the later, the United Nations has recognized this fact in goal 7 of its Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), which stresses the need to ensure that everyone has access to affordable, reliable, sustainable, and modern energy, which is relevant to other SDG goals such as 11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities), 12 (Responsible Production and Consumption), and 13 (Climate Action). Thus, nations have committed themselves to improve their energy performance in various arenas, including through the efficient use of energy resources and more sustainable sources of energy, of which renewable energy carriers are believed to be an indispensable part of the solution. However, the intermittency of many of these renewable energy resources makes them unreliable, which introduces significant economic and security issues. Energy storage is currently seen as one of the best ways of minimizing those effects, further highlighting the significance of this topic. The current discussion in this domain mainly revolves around ways to store surplus energy in a safe and efficient way, so that it can be used whenever and wherever it is needed.

Therefore, this Special Issue of Energies aims to contribute to the energy storage agenda through the presentation of a combination of multidisciplinary and state-of-the-art scientific knowledge toward improving energy availability, security, and the performance and competitiveness of current or future renewable energy generation systems.

We invite authors of papers on innovative technical developments, reviews, case studies, and strategic and policy discussions as well as assessments from different disciplines that are relevant to energy storage. Some examples are topics such as the development, analysis, and implementation of novel batteries; phase change materials and their applications; energy systems integration; life cycle analysis of energy storage systems; the integration of energy storage systems in sustainable buildings; pumped-hydro energy storage; energy storage and electrical vehicles; fuel cells; hydrogen and methane as energy carriers; power-to-gas or other forms of energy storage in chemical compounds; information management; financial and economic analysis of energy storage systems; smart grids and energy systems; and energy policy.

Prof. Dr. Nídia Caetano
Prof. Dr. Carlos Felgueiras
Dr. Antonio A. Martins
Dr. Hooman Farzaneh
Dr. Meisam Tabatabaei
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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