Looking for power storage device

[Togglerise]

I have been working on a project for my college now for 3 years and senior year is fast approaching and I cant find what I am looking for so I turn to the web for the first time ever with an issue I cant solve.

I have built a device (dont ask cause im not telling till patent is in effect) that creates an excessive amount of extra energy other than what it uses and Im blowing up even some of the best of the schools equipment trying to read this extra energy. I have tried storing it in a chain of car batteries but... well ill just say that I cant grow hair on my right arm anymore cause of that little miss happening... I dont have time or the funds to wait for something bigger and the school is about ready to revoke my lab usage forever if one more thing explodes before I graduate.

What Im looking for is something that will hold up to the extra energy for at least 8 hours without exploding so that I can run porper tests all at once and get a true reading on this energy. To give you an idea as to how much extra I charged 30 car batteries in 8 minutes and they blew at 13 minutes. Im sure some one is gonna ask if I have tried to slow the output on this and I will say that is not a part of the device and I will not even consider it.

Thank you to anyone that helps.

PS: Sorry I cant give any more information its a big secret and I dont want my professors to find out till the device is done.

 

[keith1200rs]

Some power resistors in a huge oil tank? Measure the temperature rise. I will let you calculate the size of the tank required.

Keith

 

[mtwieg]

Do you actually need to store the energy, or is it okay to just dissipate it? How long does the process last, and what's the average power like?

 

[Togglerise]

I would perfer to store it cause it would take me a week to pack up and move to a larger area if I was to just let it dissipate plus I wanna know just how much extra Im producing so that I know what I will need for my full scale device. Im in a 7x9x9 room so dont wanna be to close to it incase of excessive discharge. I wanna walk in a year not be in a box 6ft under. The whole process can run indefently if I want it to but obviously I havent gotten to that point cause of the power issues and as for the power readings I cant get a stable reading all I get is error and smoke...lots of smoke D:

 

[exnol]

If I had some resources, I would have electrolysis on water and store the hydrogen! (Just a suggestion)

 

[Togglerise]

Well thanks for the help but i think im gonna have to just wait till i can get access to more funds cause i just got revoked from the lab but thanks for trying guys/gals

 

[enjunear]

Thinking to alternative energy studies, a lot of those sources make lots of power while the sun shines, wind blows, etc... but can't store the energy well for usage when the sun sets, wind quits blowing. Look into some of the options for those storage solutions.

One that comes to mind that may work for your rig is pumping water to an elevated tank. To reduce bulk, instead of storing the water at the top, have an overflow return the water to the source "tank", so the pump never runs dry. You'd have an infinite power sink... DC pump uses the excess energy to move water up to tank, water runs back down to a small storage tank/bucket/etc (gravity removes the gain in potential energy). Crappy conversion efficiency, but it'd save you from blowing up anything else... just have to be careful with the water-rig and electronics. You could put a wattmeter on the pump and show how much extra energy your system is throwing off, for a quantitative measurement.

In a long-term storage scenario, use the pump to fill an outdoor pool and later, use the stored water to spin a generator located downhill from the pool... hydroelectric conversion. (again, crappy conversion efficiency)

 

[DXNewcastle]

One that comes to mind that may work for your rig is pumping water to an elevated tank. To reduce bulk, instead of storing the water at the top, have an overflow return the water to the source "tank", so the pump never runs dry.

I agree.
This is a well-established method of storing electrical energy, used by power generating companies; called pumped storeage. They are a simple function of a power generator which can be operated in 2 modes: when generating, the pressure of water high up on a hill turns the turbines, generating useful electric power into the load of consumer's appliances. When storing, the 'excess' energy in the power grid being produced by other plants turns the turbines in the reverse direction, pumping water back up the hill. Thus the energy is 'stored' by the increased potential energy in the elevated water.
If the Wattage you've been producing is in the order of a load of car batteries then this will be fine - those operating in the UK are around 300MW, you can find them in Scotland and Wales.
And if that wasn't enough (!) you could just pump sea water!

Another form of storage used in some transport with re-generative breaking is to energise a flywheel, this works well for short bursts of energy input during breaking (which can then be fully released during accelleration). But even if the short-term nature of power excesses stored this was was acceptable, then perhaps the bearings for such a device would be beyond your abilities.

Alternatively, if you do find a way of generating useful energy, then why not just sell it to the generating companies in the same way that domestic owners of PV panels do? Use the load of other consumers' appliances, meter it and sell it. If the quantities produced are more modest, and a few carbatteries suggests that it is, then as Keith suggested, 20kW water heating elements are going to convert your electricity into measurable and recoverable heat quite simply. There's really no need to play around with corrosive battery acids or other dangerous materials and I would strongly advise against it.

I also advise simply dissipating the energy, use a commercial load-bank if you have to (you can hire them short-term from plant-hire companies).

Whatever you are trying to do, the merit in any 'new' design will be in its ability to generate useful and measurable electricity, not how you then store that energy, so concentrate on the important task of power generation. Clearly other people have better skills and experience than you in power storeage, so why waste time on making a poor job of the one part of the design which isn't original?