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Abstract The demand for reduction of greenhouse gases, the need for a decreased dependence on fossil fuel, and the increasing penetration of the renewable energy sources are changing the world's electrical energy production. The island of Crete in Greece possesses great potential when it comes to wind and solar energy. Currently, a large amount of wind energy is often being curtailed in Crete, due to the technical minima of the existing thermal units, the inherent fluctuating power output of the wind turbines and the electricity demand profile. Electrical energy storage is recognized as an underpinning technology to have great potential in overcoming these challenges. There are many different ways to store the surplus energy and convert it back to electrical energy when it is needed. The aim of the present paper is the investigation of the role that energy storage can play in the further development of renewable energy sources in non-interconnected islands via considering the energy storage technologies of compressed air energy storage, pumped hydroelectric storage and sodium – sulfur batteries. This paper examines the solution of electrical energy storage in curtailment exploitation. A review over the above energy storage technologies is carried out and a comparative analysis is performed for the case study of Crete. Each storage technology is techno-economically evaluated using actual data. Finally, a parallel comparison of the examined storage systems' levelized cost of energy is presented and conclusions are drawn. The compressed air energy storage system appears to be more favorable, having the lowest levelized cost of energy of the examined systems studied at 0.21 €/kWh, while contributing 105.59 GWh of electrical energy to the island's grid per year. For the examined case study, compressed air energy storage system appears to be almost 20% and 50% cheaper in terms of levelized cost of energy in comparison with pumped hydro storage and batteries respectively. Highlights • Review on compressed air energy storage, pumped hydroelectric storage and sodium – sulfur batteries. • Techno-economic comparative analysis of energy storage technologies for the case study of Crete. • Comparative findings on levelized cost of energy of different storage technologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]