University of Arizona’s Arizona Research Institute for Solar Energy (AzRISE) is partnering with SOLON Corporation and Tucson Electric Power (TEP) to build an energy Storage Management Research and Testing (SMRT) site. The site will facilitate research of different energy storage solutions for renewable energy systems and provide utilities with more control of these variable resources.

Addressing energy storage is one of the challenges with renewable sources as the sun and wind are variable. The first phase of the project will begin in August 2011 with the Compressed Air Energy Storage (CAES) technology designed by UA faculty and students.

Read the news release here.