CAES

Compressed air energy storage (CAES) is considered a mature form of deep storage due to its components being firmly “de-risked” but few projects are operating in the Western world. A project in the remote New South Wales town of Broken Hill promises to lead the way.

A research group in China has proposed to solve the typical high working pressure issues of solar-powered sprinklers by using compressed air energy storage (CAES). According to their findings, combined PV-CAES sprinklers can easily achieve high pressure and low intensity high-quality water spraying.

Long-duration energy storage (LDES) is essential for decarbonizing the grid but gigawatt-hour scale systems continue to be tricky for companies with big ideas. Here are some of the latest innovations across a flourishing array of new – and old – ideas.

Researchers in the United Arab Emirates have developed a way to use compressed air storage to store solar power and provide additional cooling. They claim their prototype could compete with commercially available compression-cooling air conditioners.

Construction has started on a 350 MW/1.4 GWh compressed air energy storage project in Shangdong, China.

The Chinese Academy of Sciences has switched on a 100 MW compressed air energy storage system in China’s Hebei province. The facility can store more than 132 million kWh of electricity per year.

The investment is planned to support development and construction of Hydrostor’s 1.1GW, 8.7GWh of Advanced Compressed Air Energy Storage projects that are well underway in California and Australia, and help expand Hydrostor’s project development pipeline globally.

Researchers have studied the potential of using compressed air to store renewable energy in offshore saline aquifers. The technology could hold 77-96 TWh for up to two months in British waters, although the costs have proven hard to pin down.