Among the different ES technologies, compressed air energy storage (CAES) can store tens to hundreds of MW of power capacity for long-term applications and utility-scale. The increasing need for large-scale ES has led to the rising interest and development of CAES projects.
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
Other innovations include the design of low-cost thermal storage techniques (e.g., concrete, molten silicon, alumina spheres) that provide high capacity at a minimum cost and improved water-based storage with insulated tanks that enable longer duration heat storage.
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 , .
Buenos Aires, Argentina, used air pulses to move clock arms every minute. Starting in 1896, Paris used compressed air to power homes and industry. Beginning in 1978 with the first utility-scale diabatic CAES project in Huntorf, Germany, CAES has been the subject of ongoing exploration and development for grid applications.