Trying to increase Britain’s use of renewable energy can drive environmentalists to feel like banging their heads on a wall. But what if the solution was there all along — in those walls?
British scientists have designed a form of cheap concrete that can not only be used to construct buildings but also store electricity.
The technology means that walls could be used to invisibly store energy from renewables without the need for banks of lithium batteries. “The idea is to turn buildings and structures into batteries — to store electricity in the structure itself and release it at times of peak demand,” Mohamed Saafi, from Lancaster University’s engineering department, said. “We have a lot of buildings. If you could convert them into batteries it