An ambitious new UK project has begun to store excess energy from wind as highly compressed liquid air.
A large percentage of Northern Ireland's electricity used comes from renewable sources, with most of that being from wind turbines. As we increase the percentage of our power generation that comes from renewable sources, we run into issues with inconsistent load on days when the wind is low.
Non-renewable sources can be used to provide energy when renewable output is low, but this isn't ideal as we want to remove non-renewable infrastructure. The ultimate answer to this problem is efficient energy storage, storing excess energy from renewables during times of excess wind and then releasing it during low points.
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Work is now beginning on am ambitious project to use giant tanks of highly compressed air to store excess energy from wind turbines. The new energy storage plant will compress normal air so much that it becomes a liquid, and then stores it in enormous industrial tanks at -196 degrees celcius.
When power is needed, the air can be released from the tanks again and heated to re-expand it into a gas, providing enough force to drive a turbine that generates electricity. This process isn't as efficient as existing battery storage, but the tanks are cheap and don't need the rare minerals that large-scale batteries do. As a result, it should be a highly scalable solution for energy storage.
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The tech is being scalked up to produce its first 50MW commercial plant using £10m of funding in emerging technologies from the UK government. Once completed, the plant will be able to store roughly enough energy to power 50,000 homes for five hours and will serve as a blueprint for scaling the technology further.
Source: BBC News
