long duration storage with liquid air

[Ken]

https://highviewpower.com/news_announce ... e-targets/

Sorry if i missed it before , but this is a game changer as it can be sited anywhere at any scale.

[AE-NMidlands]

Yes, it looks good. Maybe a more extreme version of the experimental Compressed Air Energy Storage which is being buit at Carrington? It's unfortunate/ironic that their air tank has a big capital "H" on it though - I know what it made me think of!

It's also good that at last this Cap and Floor mechanism has been established. It seems to me that we have been waiting years to start building storage (how many pumped HEP schemes have been in the pipeline for a decade?) and it's crazy that the financial structures have been considered more important than getting on installing grid-scale storage.
A

[Stinsy]

A lot of theses schemes have been "in the pipeline for a decade" because the primary motivation is to fleece taxpayers and investors. Actually deploying something is irrelevant in these cases.

[smegal]

Yes, it looks good. Maybe a more extreme version of the experimental Compressed Air Energy Storage which is being buit at Carrington? It's unfortunate/ironic that their air tank has a big capital "H" on it though - I know what it made me think of!

It's also good that at last this Cap and Floor mechanism has been established. It seems to me that we have been waiting years to start building storage (how many pumped HEP schemes have been in the pipeline for a decade?) and it's crazy that the financial structures have been considered more important than getting on installing grid-scale storage.
A

They've had a pilot for a while and do have a couple of sites. One of which is the Carrington site.

My concern is that unless they are colocated with a source of waste heat (or use for waste cold), the round trip efficiency is pretty low.

[AE-NMidlands]

Yes, it looks good. Maybe a more extreme version of the experimental Compressed Air Energy Storage which is being buit at Carrington? It's unfortunate/ironic that their air tank has a big capital "H" on it though - I know what it made me think of!

It's also good that at last this Cap and Floor mechanism has been established. It seems to me that we have been waiting years to start building storage (how many pumped HEP schemes have been in the pipeline for a decade?) and it's crazy that the financial structures have been considered more important than getting on installing grid-scale storage.
A

They've had a pilot for a while and do have a couple of sites. One of which is the Carrington site.

My concern is that unless they are colocated with a source of waste heat (or use for waste cold), the round trip efficiency is pretty low.

Looking at the descriptions of the systems I think that the thermal energy storage is a big part of the system, in fact almost the key to it. Both Carrington and this one emphasise their thermal stores.

[Mart]

Yes, it looks good. Maybe a more extreme version of the experimental Compressed Air Energy Storage which is being buit at Carrington? It's unfortunate/ironic that their air tank has a big capital "H" on it though - I know what it made me think of!

It's also good that at last this Cap and Floor mechanism has been established. It seems to me that we have been waiting years to start building storage (how many pumped HEP schemes have been in the pipeline for a decade?) and it's crazy that the financial structures have been considered more important than getting on installing grid-scale storage.
A

They've had a pilot for a while and do have a couple of sites. One of which is the Carrington site.

My concern is that unless they are colocated with a source of waste heat (or use for waste cold), the round trip efficiency is pretty low.

Yep, been following Highview for over a decade now I think. The idea is great, mainly because it can use off the shelf kit available pretty much everywhere where there is a chemical industry. So local assembly, not shipping major parts around.

A you say, works much better if they have waste heat or cold to make use of, I think if there is plenty of both, they once suggested a more than 100% round trip efficiency.

Like the CO2 batteries, LAES is being deployed on a small / trial scale, and may have a lot of potential in the medium (MDES) duration range 4-10hrs, and into the low LDES role at 10hrs+.

[MikeNovack]

I am going to refrain from giving another Physics lecture. Just mention a few factors folks might want to look up)

1) The critical temperature for O and N (the temperature above which both will remain gasses regardless of how high the pressure)
2) Whether pressure vessels "scale" or not (if a vessel of size X needs walls Y thick to withstand a given pressure, will walls Y thick still be enough if the size becomes 2X? Or will Y have to be increased as the tank becomes larger)
3) Advertised as "long term" storage. What is the problem (what has to be happening to keep "1" from coming into play. How does THAT affect "long term".

This is a scheme where could easily show a working small scale model to potential investors.

It IS a practical scheme for short term storage.

[Ken]

Liquid air energy storage fits the long duration bill, but it is actually not a new concept. The foundational technology is attributed to a UK engineering team spearheaded by University of Newcastle upon Tyne researcher E.M. Smith, who was pursuing the idea of a compressed air storage system capable of filling in for power plants during periods of peak electricity demand. Patented in 1977, Smith’s system is adiabatic, meaning that no heat is added or subtracted from the air as it is compressed and released.

[Stan]

Here’s the video from Just have a think, with easy to understand graphics.

[AE-NMidlands]

I am going to refrain from giving another Physics lecture. Just mention a few factors folks might want to look up)

1) The critical temperature for O and N (the temperature above which both will remain gasses regardless of how high the pressure)
2) Whether pressure vessels "scale" or not (if a vessel of size X needs walls Y thick to withstand a given pressure, will walls Y thick still be enough if the size becomes 2X? Or will Y have to be increased as the tank becomes larger)
3) Advertised as "long term" storage. What is the problem (what has to be happening to keep "1" from coming into play. How does THAT affect "long term".

This is a scheme where could easily show a working small scale model to potential investors.

It IS a practical scheme for short term storage.

Don't we have (or had) loads of air liquification and distillation plants around the UK...?
I'm sure I have seen lorries of liquid N₂ on the road and delivering to scientific/research facilities - and liquid oxygen is also a regular thing. I have even done jobs on sites where other people have brought big Dewar flasks of liquid N₂ in their cars to cool the sensors in their instruments... Why suggest it might be in the "too difficult" category? I think that well-insulated (vented/cryogenic) storage of liquid air is well-established, probably since the Victorian era.