Energy Storage - Options and Opportunities Suresh V. Garimella Birck Rm. 2001 March 7, Thurs., 3:30 p.m I will briefly review the drivers for renewable and clean energy technologies, and the challenges in the widespread use of renewables. In particular, I will focus on the need for inexpensive and reliable energy storage approaches if inherently intermittent and transient renewable sources are to gain broad acceptance. As a specific example, I will tell a story from our group related to thermal energy storage in Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) plants that can decouple solar collection from power production. I will describe in some detail thermocline tank design with molten salt as the storage medium, long-term stability of such systems, integration of storage models into system-level solar power plant simulations that enable investigation of the performance in response to year-long sunlight data and power block operation, and their influence on CSP plant levelized cost of electricity. During the discussion period, I would be glad to allude to policy realities and challenges related to clean energy options. (Related papers from our work are available at: https://engineering.purdue.edu/CTRC/energy/research.html