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I'm not able to find it now, but a few years ago I read about an idea to have a massive solar plant grid in the SW of America. It would transmit to the rest of
by virmundi 11y ago
I'm not able to find it now, but a few years ago I read about an idea to have a massive solar plant grid in the SW of America. It would transmit to the rest of the country. Every so often there would be storage plants.
On good days the plants would compress air into man made caves. After the cave reached a certain pressure, the generator would distribute energy as a pass through. If there were bad generation days out SW, the compressed gas would spin turbines at the plant. I believe that each plant was to have 3-5 days worth of common load production. After that, I think there were fallback generators like gas.
The reason I bring this up, is that battery/storage can be more than what we normally think about. In the case of the caves, there are several states that have natural formations. Investment in this idea, or others could reap great returns for the future.
- jff 11y agoForcing fluids into underground cavities has proven to be so popular in other energy fields :D
- XaspR8d 11y agoInteresting, looks like this might be a press release describing that (or a similar) project? [1] Proposed wind plant in Wyoming connecting to compressed air energy storage in Utah. Can't find much about where the project went though... Looks like there are at least 3 operating CAES plants: Huntorf, Germany [2], McIntosh, Alabama [3], and Gaines, Texas [4]. [1] http://www.duke-energy.com/news/releases/2014092301.asp http://www.duke-energy.com/news/releases/2014092301.asp [2] https://www.eon.com/en/about-us/structure/asset-finder/huntorf.html https://www.eon.com/en/about-us/structure/asset-finder/hunto... [3] http://www.powersouth.com/mcintosh_power_plant http://www.powersouth.com/mcintosh_power_plant [4] http://www.generalcompression.com/index.php/tdw1 http://www.generalcompression.com/index.php/tdw1
- danjayh 11y agoCompressed air storage is only as efficient as the insulation on the storage reservoir. Without insulation, the heat generated by the compression process is lost, and much of the stored energy goes along with it. This drives up the cost of building efficient compressed air storage systems, but there are several projects underway that are attempting to find cost-effective solutions to this problem.