>Hello All....Does anyone know of the possibility of storing enrgy
>from solar panles in air compressors..


about the question:

There is one technology running near my place in France for storing
energy throught compressed air. One positive point is that you can
use very small and low cost compressor (that can stand in one hand
for example) if you have time for compressing air. The negative point
is that you need to store in very expensive and secure tanks ( if you
don't want to live near a bomb....). Here is the link to this
technology http://www.mdi.lu/english/

about the batteries:

I don't agree to this common discourse about batteries: batteries
engineered in the beginning of the XXth century by Edison ( and
discovered by a Swedish engineer), very efficient, very solid, still
function at 100 % of their capacity in 2012.
http://www.nickel-iron-battery.com/ The design is so solid and
effective that one US company has decided to buy all old batteries
available all over the world and rebuild them in new tanks, with the
same elements, just washed. http://www.zappworks.com/
6 chinese and one Russian companies build new design of iron-ickel
batteries, but hey don"t use the Edison system and can not guaranty
the batts for long years ( just 20 years...)
If you are interested in this technology, I study it for a couple of
years now ( including DIY process, but with no time to experiment), I
have harvested a lot of knowledge on this. This year for the first
time, I have seen a local company in Germany selling the chinese
ones. After all this positive, the negative: iron is easy to find,
but nickel, like copper, will run out of extraction in few years: the
price of this two unique metals for producing, storing energy will
join the gold price in less than 20 years. This will be the next
enormous crisis after petrol crisis in our century
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copper#Reserves


about low cost solutions for enough electricity for light in a house at night:

about other solutions if you have solar energy, to put electricity in
the house for light during the night: it's possible to think to
mecanical storage, like in our old watches with
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spring_(device) . The best is to pull a
ton of rocks or sand ( one cubic meter) with a
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Block_and_tackle , it can be done with a
very small electric motor ( when the sun is at the zenith to have
more power). The efficiency is correct for this goal.


about our hacker camp in the alps: 2 years after
http://www.estivenumerique.org/editorial-engl , we organize
http://apadoloup.wordpress.com/ . Paula Velez is here, Benjamin
Cadon, Philippe Langlois and other Bricolabs member will join us next
days. With Paula, we will try to produce electricity with a tree, in
the same experiment for OSwash.




JN