Navigating challenges in large-scale renewable energy storage: Barriers, solutions, and innovations

The accelerated growth in renewable energy systems offers resolutions for reaching clean and sustainable energy production. Electrical Energy Systems (ESS) present indispensable tools with diverse applications to satisfy intermittent characteristics of renewable energies and enable the transition to clean energy production. The applied methodology to assess and review the hybridization concept summarizes the employments of the technical evaluations in the mutual resolutions between the energy production and consumption sectors while the high-efficiency EES has been considered as a synchronizer. Optimized smart grids and microgrids benefit from EES, making energy systems more efficient and reliable. The rise of electric vehicles as an eco-friendly transportation solution also depends on EES to overcome energy storage challenges. The novel aim of this work lies in the elaboration of the large-scale EES for storing and harvesting energy for effective peak-shaving purposes. This multidisciplinary review put a higher emphasis on the essence of the interconnection between different industrial subdivisions for environmentally benign, high-efficiency, and economical process reflections. Mechanical energy storage, thermomechanical energy storage, thermal energy storage, chemical energy storage, electrical energy storage, and electrochemical energy storage are the involved concepts in this study. These divisions collectively form a comprehensive strategy for optimizing energy utilization. RE sites increasingly utilize energy storage systems to enhance system flexibility, grid stability, and power supply reliability. Whether the primary energy source is solar, wind, geothermal, hydroelectric, or oceanic, EES provides the critical ability to store and manage energy efficiently.