Compressed air energy storage with liquid air capacity extension

As renewable electricity generation capacity increases, energy storage will be required at larger scales. Compressed Air Energy Storage (CAES) at large scales, with effective management of heat, is recognised to have potential to provide affordable grid-scale energy storage. Where suitable geologies...

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Main Authors: Kantharaj, Bharath, Garvey, Seamus D., Pimm, Andrew James
Format: Article
Published: Elsevier 2015
Subjects:
Online Access:https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/45063/
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author Kantharaj, Bharath
Garvey, Seamus D.
Pimm, Andrew James
author_facet Kantharaj, Bharath
Garvey, Seamus D.
Pimm, Andrew James
author_sort Kantharaj, Bharath
building Nottingham Research Data Repository
collection Online Access
description As renewable electricity generation capacity increases, energy storage will be required at larger scales. Compressed Air Energy Storage (CAES) at large scales, with effective management of heat, is recognised to have potential to provide affordable grid-scale energy storage. Where suitable geologies are unavailable, compressed air could be stored in pressurised steel tanks above ground, but this would incur significant storage costs. Liquid Air Energy Storage (LAES), on the other hand, does not need a pressurised storage vessel, can be located almost anywhere, has a relatively large volumetric exergy density at ambient pressure, and has relatively low marginal cost of energy storage capacity even at modest scales. However, it has lower roundtrip efficiency than compressed air energy storage technologies. This paper carries out thermodynamic analyses for an energy storage installation comprising a compressed air component supplemented with a liquid air store, and additional machinery to transform between gaseous air at ambient temperature and high pressure, and liquid air at ambient pressure. A roundtrip efficiency of 42% is obtained for the conversion of compressed air at 50 bar to liquid air, and back. The proposed system is more economical than pure LAES and more economical than a pure CAES installation if the storage duration is sufficiently long and if the high-pressure air store cannot exploit some large-scale geological feature.
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spelling nottingham-450632020-05-04T17:18:04Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/45063/ Compressed air energy storage with liquid air capacity extension Kantharaj, Bharath Garvey, Seamus D. Pimm, Andrew James As renewable electricity generation capacity increases, energy storage will be required at larger scales. Compressed Air Energy Storage (CAES) at large scales, with effective management of heat, is recognised to have potential to provide affordable grid-scale energy storage. Where suitable geologies are unavailable, compressed air could be stored in pressurised steel tanks above ground, but this would incur significant storage costs. Liquid Air Energy Storage (LAES), on the other hand, does not need a pressurised storage vessel, can be located almost anywhere, has a relatively large volumetric exergy density at ambient pressure, and has relatively low marginal cost of energy storage capacity even at modest scales. However, it has lower roundtrip efficiency than compressed air energy storage technologies. This paper carries out thermodynamic analyses for an energy storage installation comprising a compressed air component supplemented with a liquid air store, and additional machinery to transform between gaseous air at ambient temperature and high pressure, and liquid air at ambient pressure. A roundtrip efficiency of 42% is obtained for the conversion of compressed air at 50 bar to liquid air, and back. The proposed system is more economical than pure LAES and more economical than a pure CAES installation if the storage duration is sufficiently long and if the high-pressure air store cannot exploit some large-scale geological feature. Elsevier 2015-11-01 Article PeerReviewed Kantharaj, Bharath, Garvey, Seamus D. and Pimm, Andrew James (2015) Compressed air energy storage with liquid air capacity extension. Applied Energy, 157 . pp. 152-164. ISSN 0306-2619 Energy storage Compressed air energy storage Liquid air energy storage Multistream plate-fin heat exchanger Exergy http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306261915009435 doi:10.1016/j.apenergy.2015.07.076 doi:10.1016/j.apenergy.2015.07.076
spellingShingle Energy storage
Compressed air energy storage
Liquid air energy storage
Multistream plate-fin heat exchanger
Exergy
Kantharaj, Bharath
Garvey, Seamus D.
Pimm, Andrew James
Compressed air energy storage with liquid air capacity extension
title Compressed air energy storage with liquid air capacity extension
title_full Compressed air energy storage with liquid air capacity extension
title_fullStr Compressed air energy storage with liquid air capacity extension
title_full_unstemmed Compressed air energy storage with liquid air capacity extension
title_short Compressed air energy storage with liquid air capacity extension
title_sort compressed air energy storage with liquid air capacity extension
topic Energy storage
Compressed air energy storage
Liquid air energy storage
Multistream plate-fin heat exchanger
Exergy
url https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/45063/
https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/45063/
https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/45063/