Ding! Someone stole yo batt’ry!
World’s largest accumulator
Always keep yer accumulator filled so ya got a gear/thrust reverser cycle available...
Which of the above supposed "electricity providers" doesn't create electricity, it only stores it?
Key phrase, surplus electricity assumes you have "Off Peak" electricity to spare. With an increasingly 24/7 economy, digital server farms, and electric vehicles being charged overnight, that "surplus" electricity looks more like unicorn farts than a solution to avoid building more generating capacity.
Dat’s just a bunch of hot (then cold) air. Badda-bing, badda-boom!
so it’s like a dam.. only with air..
Background
Since 1975, when it first began research on CAES, EPRI has maintained continuing efforts to interest the electric utility industry in CAES as a viable storage alternative. CAES plants use both electric energy (approximately 0.80 kWh input for each kWh output) plus fuel (4570 BTU input/per kWh output). Previous experience with CAES includes one 290-MW-4 h plant in service in Germany since 1978. Alabama Electric Cooperative (AEC) took the lead in building the first plant in the United States, a plant that included a first-of-a-kind EPRI developed recuperator to improve plant fuel consumption by about 25%. The EPRI role also included technical and engineering support during all phases of the project, documenting project progress via an engineer-of-record, and funding of specialized plant instrumentation and analyses.
Results
This report is a chronological record of early U.S. CAES developments including load and generation-planning studies, power supply study results, conceptual engineering designs, project administration activities, design specifications, contract requirements, environmental and licensing documents, and construction planning activities. It covers the AEC project from its earliest stages to contract execution on July 29, 1988. Volume 2 of this report will cover the construction period, which formally terminated at midnight, May 31, 1991. Volume 3 will document plant testing, operation, and maintenance.
EPRI Perspective
The planning, engineering, construction, and operation of the AEC plant has proved that CAES in the 100-MW size is economically and environmentally attractive. No major problems were encountered during the early stages of planning or during the engineering of this plant. As a result of initial economic studies, it was discovered that one 100-MW plant would be more economical than two 50-MW units. Thermodynamic studies indicated that cavern wall effects on stored-air temperature required a cavern that was about 25% larger than the size initially proposed. An economic study showed CAES to be preferable to other alternatives for the load projections and load shape forecast by AEC. These and other results connected with this plant and other attractive future CAES plant configurations will aid utilities in their efforts to evaluate and build CAES plants.
So with this compressed air system, you are recovering 60% of the energy stored. I assume the 40% is lost mostly to heat when compressing the air. Why not just lift a huge weight up through a gear train, and let the weight fall to run a generator through the same gear train when you want to tap the energy you stored. The only loss there would be friction, which has to be much less than 40%.
Live in the south like I do and get plenty of sun, much of which is consumed in the summer for our intense use of A/C, which is great from a storage standpoint (no need to store much for long when much of the power you generate is on long summer days is used on those same days and nights).
But long term storage in the winter is still an issue, even in the south. When we go for a week or two with little sun in the winter we'd have to have a ton of battery storage to hold enough solar energy to get us through that. That's too cost prohibitive. But a home hydrogen electrolysis/storage system can produce hydrogen during the spring and fall (when we get plenty of sun but consume little power because the climate is nice) to use later in the winter (convert hydrogen into electricity).
And hydrogen gas is lighter than air. So if your outside tank leaks it rises up into the atmosphere safely away from your house and property. A bummer for when you need the power, but not a fire hazard.
But this ain't gonna happen with control-freak Dims managing our "green energy" for us. It'll only happen when we take over our energy production ourselves and not let government control our energy consumption with sky high rates and a China type social credit score determining who has to pay what just to cool their house.
Both use electricity from the grid to “store” energy for later.
Tesla's Powerpack stores this as electricity, and Hydrostor stores it as air—which is then regenerated into electricity.
Don't get me wrong, depending on the area and peak usage, I think it is a good idea, but you can have a Powerpack at your house, but not an underground storage cavern system...Yet.
Be sure to read the comments to better understand the FAILINGS of this concept.
Compressors to put the air in the ground and pumps to move the water from the cavern, certainly some loss of pressure in the rock. I can’t imagine this air storage to be very efficient considering the power needed for compressors and pumps.
To build a case for “renewables” the energy-related big tech mob promoted a companion need for very complex grid systems as required to make the grid “stable” and what the whole really does is make the grid less stable. But hey, the big tech outfits got to sell a lot of big technology for their schemes that have never fulfilled the sales job put out for them.
Rather than vent the heat generated as the air is compressed, Hydrostor’s system captures that heat and stores it in a separate thermal storage tank, then uses it to reheat the air as it’s fed in to the turbine stage, which increases the efficiency of the system.
Pfff..... I proposed that project to a mining company 30 years ago. They had an abandoned deep mine in hard rock not that far away from where they were currently mining and were looking to take advantage of cheaper nighttime rates and load levelling during the day. In the end as is often the case, it just became too hard a sell to upper management...too bad, it would have worked quite well. As for the economics….we never got to completing the feasibility study stage.
It’s still a double-conversion, which means it’s inherently inefficient. It doesn’t matter whether it’s electricity or compressed air, they’re still converting energy into a storeable form, and then converting it again into something that can be used to produce force.
But in the case of fossil fuels, nature already has done the converting and storing for us. Sunshine was converted into stable petrochemical energy. You can put it in your pocket and take it wherever you need to use it. Then light a match to it to release the energy. None of these crazy schemes can or will come close to that kind of low cost and efficiency.