Compressed Air Storage Beats Batteries at Grid Scale

[MarineLiner]

ERIC WESOFF: MARCH 3, 2011
Compressed Air Storage Beats Batteries at Grid Scale

CAES is efficient, scalable and familiar to utilities. Can electrochemical technologies compete in grid-scale storage?


What is the most widely deployed grid-scale energy storage technology? That would be pumped hydro, with about 21 gigawatts in the U.S. and 38 gigawatts in the EU. Pumped hydro is very site-specific, and few new pumped hydro sources have come on line in the last decade.**

Coming in second is compressed air energy storage (CAES) with a few hundred megawatts deployed across the globe at two sites -- one in Alabama, the other in Germany -- and a few more pilot projects in the works.

That's pumping water up a hill and pumping air into a cave, respectively, technologies that are more Flintstones than Jetsons.

Trailing a distant third are all of the other energy storage technologies -- electrochemical, thermal, gravitational and otherwise with just tens of megawatts in action -- mostly in Japan as a mandated way of firming up wind power generation using sodium sulfur (NaS) batteries from NGK.



Source: http://www.greentechmedia.com/articl...ats-batteries/

[russ]

Eric dusted off a lot of old stuff and watched an webinar.

Nothing new in the post. In 5 years maybe we will have a better idea of how well CAES will work. There are trial units either operating or near operating now.

It seems to me that it 'ain't gonna be easy' to pump anything into a hole in the ground and expect it to be there tomorrow.

Russ

[MarineLiner]

Investigations by EPRI, the Electric Power Research Institute

Eric dusted off a lot of old stuff and watched an webinar.

Nothing new in the post. In 5 years maybe we will have a better idea of how well CAES will work. There are trial units either operating or near operating now.

It seems to me that it 'ain't gonna be easy' to pump anything into a hole in the ground and expect it to be there tomorrow.

Russ

Investigations by EPRI, the Electric Power Research Institute, indicate that up to 80 percent of the U.S. has geology suitable for CAES. A single 300-megawatt CAES plant would require 22 million cubic feet of storage space -- enough to store eight hours’ worth of electricity. CAES is relatively affordable at $1,500 per kilowatt capital cost and the two CAES plants in use have been operating reliably since 1978 and 1991, respectively.*

[russ]

Like I said - This is not new and interested parties are following the new projects carefully.

The article (and many at green tech) seems to be virtually a paid advertisement by various parties.

The 80% of geology being suitable is blatant BS. It takes a 'leak proof' geology for one of these things. EPRI has it's axe to grind - they are not a disinterested party and who knows what the backroom games are.

The capital cost estimate is totally meaningless. I have been places where they pumped concrete in the ground for a couple of years when caverns were found.

Technology to assess the underground situation is better now than years past though.

The part about using the heat from compression to preheat the stored air seems very strange as both should never be happening at the same time.

The comments on the post are really much more informative and accurate than the article itself.

Russ

[russ]

Just finished reading all the comments on the article - they are definitely more interesting.

Some good posts with few foolish ones. The clown that wants to use car batteries to back up the grid and another that talks about using surplus wind to manufacture ammonia are among the foolish group.

Russ

[Dander53]

NYSEG pilot

I'm pretty sure I heard that NYSEG is getting started on a large pilot that uses the mined-out areas of the Cargill salt mines under Seneca Lake in the fingerlakes. They are claiming it as a "balancing" technology for anticipated large numbers of grid-tie systems?! We'll see.

Of course the other company that has bought-up rights to the salt mine(s) is a gas company that wants to use it to store seasonal excess natural gas so they can make a tidy profit selling it in the winter. And everyone around here (fingerlakes) sees it as another nail in the "hydrofracking" coffin by which big-gas will turn NY and Penn into wastelands for the sake of 15 years worth of US fossil energy.

[russ]

The steps from a pilot plant to commercial are very large and difficult - not to mention expensive.

The entire concept is not new - the reason the utilities haven't picked up on it? It is not cost effective, regardless of what the green side wishes. The results will vary from location to location due to geology.

An old boss would hear someone (in an engineering discussion) say 'I wish' and would reply, 'Wish in one hand and crap in the other - see which fills up first'.

If someone can actually make it work then good. Until then it is like using wind, wave or solar power, to make hydrogen, ammonia and many other ideas - a dream.

Russ

[MarineLiner]

Link to NYSEG large pilot

I'm pretty sure I heard that NYSEG is getting started on a large pilot that uses the mined-out areas of the Cargill salt mines under Seneca Lake in the fingerlakes. They are claiming it as a "balancing" technology for anticipated large numbers of grid-tie systems?! We'll see.

Thanks for sharing.

Could we have any link to that NYSEG pilot?