Oregon Public Broadcasting

The Switch is OPB’s series on energy, and we’re talking with people who are proposing solutions to our energy problems.

Compressed Air Energy Storage demo animation

There’s a lot of talk about wind and solar power as good ways to get us off fossil fuels. 

But they’re intermittent, meaning they don’t produce electricity when the wind isn’t blowing or the sun isn’t shining.

That’s where energy storage comes in, and a number of Midwestern utilities are looking under their feet for the solution.

The Iowa Stored Energy Park is about two years away from reality, but it aims to store energy deep underground in the form of compressed air, and use that air to run turbines on the surface when energy is needed.

Kent Holst is the Development Director of the park, and he joins me on the phone.