We are often told by critics of sustainable energy sources such as solar and wind that the sun doesn't always shine, the wind doesn't always blow. Self evident as that is, the implication here is that they are not reliable as so called base-load electrical resources and therefore we need increased electrical generation from fossil fuels (for example coal - beyond 2030 only as a "transition" to greener options, natural gas, diesel) and from SMRs (Small Modular nuclear Reactors).
What if the energy produced by wind and solar were available when the sun doesn't shine and wind doesn't blow? We all know about battery storage.. What about compressed air? Saskatchewan has enormous utility-sized potential: we have abundant sun and wind, and we have abundant potential for creating underground impermeable caverns for energy storage in the form of compressed air. In Saskatchewan the mining industry has developed the technology and expertise to create, through solution mining, large underground caverns in a salt geological layer. This same expertise and technology can be employed to create caverns for utility sized compressed energy storage, energy created by the sun and by the wind.
Read and hear more about this:
https://ptrc.ca/pub/Blog/ptrc-caes-white-paper-2023-final.pdf