Solar power when the sun has set

November 21, 2012 -- Updated 0139 GMT (0939 HKT)

The battery that could power the world

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Solar, wind energy can't provide reliable 24/7 power without a way to store it
• Donald Sadoway at MIT is working on a battery that would enable low-cost, mass storage
• He says if power could be stored, the energy business would be changed forever
• Sadoway: Answer to our energy issues isn't only conservation or drilling, it's innovation

(CNN) -- What if we could use solar energy when the sun has set, or wind energy when the air is calm? Donald Sadoway is working on a way to make that happen.

The professor of materials chemistry at MIT is leading an effort to develop a new kind of battery -- a "liquid metal battery" -- that would enable the economical storage of energy from solar, wind and other sources so that it could be used when homes and businesses need it.

Sadoway's work landed him on TIME's list of the world's 100 most influential people this year and last month he was a guest on theColbert Report.

The missing link to renewable energy

In March, he described his project in an interview with CNN after giving a talk at the TED conference in Long Beach, California. "We need to have reliable sources of electricity. And wind and solar in harmony with a battery become reliable 24/7," Sadoway said.

Watch Donald Sadoway's TED Talk

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Describing his group's work at MIT, he said, "We think it's a breakthrough because it addresses all of the uniquely demanding performance requirements of the grid, namely uncommonly high power, long service lifetime, but in addition, meeting the superlow price point of this application.

TED.com: Using nature to grow batteries

Sadoway explained the importance of the liquid metal battery in his TED Talk this way:

"The electricity powering the lights in this theater was generated just moments ago. Because the way things stand today, electricity demand must be in constant balance with electricity supply. If in the time that it took me to walk out here on this stage, some tens of megawatts of wind power stopped pouring into the grid, the difference would have to be made up from other generators immediately. But coal plants, nuclear plants can't respond fast enough. A giant battery could.