The world’s largest demonstration plant for a new kind of renewable energy storage is up and running in the west of the China. Called liquid-air energy storage (LAES) the plant uses renewable electricity to compress air to extreme densities until it turns to liquid. It can then be rapidly released to power a turbine and discharge that green energy back into the grid.
This would be perfect for North Africa and Australia where there is excellent solar capability but limited water and high ambient temps (not great for batteries)
not the best article, but this shit is awesome! 600mwh is a demo project in China.
This matches battery deployment costs in china if the compressor is half power. It is cheaper with more storage. Batteries don’t scale much lower in cost with more of them. So, if you need want an extra 600mwh+ of storage that can charge slower than batteries (but at the same time) then this is perfect.
Solar in southern Canada needs H2 electrolysis in summer to provide baseload in winter. Lots of storage needed to run baseload+electrolysis 24/7 in summer, and winter resilience. This tech is only 50% efficient, but current market for pure H2 is minimal, and Ammonia production is both its main use, and a massively larger market. Also, ammonia is massively larger volumetric energy density, and easy to store. A giant solar farm in Canada can pair with electric haber bosch plant to produce ammonia from green H2, and LAES can provide pure N2. (Pure O2 is also separated by liquifaction). Haber Bosch plant can also provide even higher waste heat than its 200C pressured water extraction, boosting LAES efficiency.
This is also an energy storage abundance path with different skillset than batteries…
this is an old idea through, decades ago when i subscribed to Scientific American a front cover atory was about an idea was to use abandoned underground mines for massive compressed air storage that could be released to spin a turbines when needed. i e a battery
good to see the Chinese having a go though
This implementation is first sensible path from battery systems price drops.
It’s spinning turbines alllllllll the way down!
Compressed air storage already exists. That’s different from liquid air storage.
How so? Its higher pressure, but still just compressed air storage. They use the energy released during decompression to generate electricity.
Is not compressed, when it becomes liquid it can be unpressurized and just needs thermal insulation to stay cold. That’s how gas works. Not about pressure at all. You can pump the liquid or let it drain into an unpressurized thermos.
So a different kind of steam.
In a way I would say it’s pretty different, right? At room temperature, water needs a lot of energy to turn and keep turning into steam, while at first glance it would seem that air could be kept liquid at room temperature (of course after using energy to compress it) without using (much?) energy, then release that energy in a useful form when you need it.
I was joking about the “it’s always just steam” in energy production.
This here is just inverse steam for storing.Got it! Inverse steam is a good way to describe it.
Meanwhile, US cuts NSF funding.
They really want China to win.
They ‘won’ a long time ago, you just are now seeing them starting to get ahead.
… is up and running in the west of the China.
No. “in Chinas’ west ?” or " … ?" idk.
When electricity is plentiful, it powers machinery that draws in air, compresses it and cools it to extremely low temperatures of around -190°C. At this point, the air becomes a liquid, taking up far less space than it did as a gas.
No. Liquid fractions of gases from air readily separates. So O2(l), N2(l), Ar(g), and many other, each being much more valuable alone. Helium for example is very expensive.
(So, economically speaking, only the nitrogen should be expanded back to retrieve stored energy.)
in my opinion, this article could have been much better even if written by artificial intelligence.
It’s remote and it sounds like they’re not messing with separating the gas which costs more and needs more equipment and storage.
