Chinese state-owned energy group Huaneng, Tsinghua University, and China National Salt Industry Group have commissioned the first salt cavern for compressed air energy storage in China.
The Jiangsu Jintan Salt Cavern Compressed Air Energy Storage Project is located in Changzhou, Jiangsu province. It has a storage capacity of 300 MWh and a power generating capacity of 60 MW.
The facility features a salt cavern, situated 1,000 meters underground and owned by China National Salt Industry Group. The system has an efficiency of more than 60% and is expected to reach a power generating capacity of 1 GW. Huaneng Group built the plant and is now operating it.
“Its commissioning marks the qualitative leap of China's compressed air energy storage technology from theoretical experiment to engineering application, and provides a new energy storage scheme for the construction of a new power system with new energy as the main body,” Huaneng said.
The China Energy Storage Alliance (CNESA) noted a number of advantages with non-afterburning compressed air energy storage power generation technology. They include high capacity, long life cycles, low cost, and fast response times.
“The completed project will help to solve the problem of wind and solar curtailment, alleviate the current challenge of energy shortage in Jiangsu province, and promote the commercial development process of advanced technologies and equipment in the domestic energy storage industry,” said CNESA.
This content is protected by copyright and may not be reused. If you want to cooperate with us and would like to reuse some of our content, please contact: editors@pv-magazine.com.
Please explain what energy source is used to compress and store the air.
It doesn’t actually matter, this sort of technology is needed for grid stabilisation. As that gets better then we can reduce the max power output of power stations and consider using more cheaper renewables to produce energy.
How is air-tightness ascertained in the caverns?