Giant Batteries Deliver Renewable Energy When It’s Needed

Solar power is abundant — when the Sun is shining. Wind power is steady — when the wind is blowing. And a power grid is extremely convenient — until there’s an outage. But creating a steady supply of electricity from intermittent power sources is a challenge. NASA was focused on this problem more than 45 years ago, when the agency designed a new type of liquid battery during the energy price shocks of the 1970s.