Abstract
Hydro energy still remains the highest RE
contributor to electricity generation globally,
nevertheless, trends in solar and wind energy has shown
increasing investment in RE. Though a decline in
investment was observed between 2012 and 2013, yet
investment in RE exceeded that of non-RE in the excess
of $80 billion dollar. In 2014, investment increased by
16%. As developed countries get saturated with RE
technologies, developing countries are now the focus for
investment. Wistfully, path dependency problem, lack of
adequate infrastructure and policy framework have
been highlighted as the major barrier to RE deployment
in developing countries. Also, lack of harmonised
government agency for RE implementation, incentives
and educational gap are the institutional and social
barriers. Energy Storage (ES) is being promoted as the
“game changer” with capability of smoothening the
variability associated with the two RE technologies, wind
and solar, with the highest deployment rate. Recent
developments are indicative of cost reduction for ES.
This paper therefore presents a concise and holistic
review of renewable energy (RE) technologies for
electricity generation and assess the roles of ES in
mitigating intermittency associated with their generation
profile.