Compressed air energy storage (CAES) is an effective solution for balancing this mismatch and therefore is suitable for use in future electrical systems to achieve a high penetration of renewable energy generation.
Environmental assessment of energy storage systems - Energy & Environmental Science (RSC Publishing) Power-to-What? – Environmental assessment of energy storage systems † A large variety of energy storage systems are currently investigated for using surplus power from intermittent renewable energy sources.
As potential products, we consider the reconversion to power but also mobility, heat, fuels and chemical feedstock. Using life cycle assessment, we determine the environmental impacts avoided by using 1 MW h of surplus electricity in the energy storage systems instead of producing the same product in a conventional process.
Compressed air is stored in underground caverns or up ground vessels , . The CAES technology has existed for more than four decades. However, only Germany (Huntorf CAES plant) and the United States (McIntosh CAES plant) operate full-scale CAES systems, which are conventional CAES systems that use fuel in operation , .
The largest component in such systems is the storage medium for the compressed air. This means that higher pressure storage enables reduced volume and higher energy density.
Linden Svd, Patel M. New compressed air energy storage concept improves the profitability of existing simple cycle, combined cycle, wind energy, and landfill gas power plants. In: Proceedings of ASME Turbo Expo 2004: Power for Land, Sea, and Air; 2004 Jun 14–17; Vienna, Austria. ASME; 2004. p. 103–10. F. He, Y. Xu, X. Zhang, C. Liu, H. Chen