Canadian company proposes compressed air energy storage system

September 10, 2021

Clean energy has always been one of the topics of common concern in the world. Canada has taken the lead in developing the clean energy industry in many technologies. For the time being, the most used clean energy for human beings is hydroelectric power generation, but this type of power generation has very strict requirements both in the season and in the region. Recently, foreign media sources stated that at present, companies in Canada already have access to the "Compressed Air Energy Storage" (CAES) system business.

The CAES system business was developed by Canadian energy start-up company Hydrostor. In simple terms, the CAES system is compressed and stored in the air when power is available. When the power is scarce, the CAES system generates electricity by decompressing the air. Hydrostor believes that air can be compressed and stored in abandoned mines, settled subterranean gas tanks, caves, expired oil and gas wells, or new gas storage wells. It is not bound by special geological structures and can be built on almost any terrain. Such an air storage warehouse, the storage cost will be half of the current battery technology, energy efficiency can match with natural gas.

Hydrostor plans to compress the stored energy in the underground caverns. The caves are connected by pipes to the nearby water bodies so that the water can enter and leave the caves when the air flows out. The water in the shaft and cavity helps to keep the air at a constant pressure. In order to increase efficiency, Hydrostor uses an adiabatic design in which the heat generated during compression is removed by a heat exchanger and stored in a volume of water, which is then used again. Air is heated during expansion to drive the turbine.

However, the biggest drawback of this system is that the cost of infrastructure construction is relatively expensive. Considering that this technology needs water to fill the space, it must also be built near the water source.

Hydrostor is not the first company to think of generating electricity from stored air. As early as 2014, there were also developments in China, such as China’s first 1.5 MW compressed air energy storage that could be launched by China Keao, and Guizhou’s Bijie’s 1.5 MW compressed air energy storage system was also the world’s first MW-scale supercritical compression. Air storage system. SustainX and LightSail Energy are also available abroad. SustainX has launched a system to fully store compressed air in pipelines, while LightSail Energy plans to store air in steel tanks. When this concept of Hydrostor can be applied to reality, we can only wait for time to verify.

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Ms. LISA CHEN

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