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Direct Solar Power: Off-Grid Without Batteries
(solar.lowtechmagazine.com)
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this post was submitted on 03 Oct 2023
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Generally refrigerators or hot water tanks aren't considered batteries, but its true that electricity is not the only form of energy we use. It's just the most easily distributed.
I'm surprised since they use so many machine tools, they don't have a compressed air system. That can also be a form of energy storage. There's already a bunch of machine tools that run exclusively on compressed air.
There are a few articles that had been devoted to discussing compressed air systems for energy storage. It is what got me to learn about the system.
Industrial compressed air isn't usually compressed enough to make a good storage medium - usually people talking about compressed air storage are dealing with 200+bar, whereas industrial compressed air is only ~8 bar. That means you need really big tanks.
Compressed air motors and compressors are also pretty inefficient and large systems leak like a seive. They're used for convenience, safety, size, and light weight, not efficiency. Battery cordless is much more efficient.