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Highview Developing 50MW/500MWh Liquid Air Energy Storage Facility in Chile
- andy_ppp 5y agoYes, I’ve wondered what the issue is with doing things like this, I mean surely there’s a way to do this with molten salt blocks too. What is the efficiency on this and how easy is it to maintain!?
- Olreich 5y agoPeople are working on molten salt batteries: https://ambri.com/technology/ https://ambri.com/technology/ is the only commercial one I know of though.
- aaron695 5y agoLiquid air energy storage systems: A review (August 2021) https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364032121004019 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S136403212... "Liquid Air Energy Storage systems have the potential to be a competitive local and grid scale energy storage technology. They also have the potential to facilitate the penetration of renewable energy technologies. However, there is a clear disconnect between what has been proven in literature, and what has been demonstrated in practice."
- mattashii 5y ago> August 2021 I'm very concerned with the credibility of that source based on this alone. Unpublished and/or future-dated articles are to be taken with a pile of salt.
- asah 5y agomolten salt? ;-)
- patall 5y agoWhat you are seeing is the online preview, August 2021 is when it appears in print. This kind of publishing is becoming more and more common, most likely to boost the journals impact factor (average number of citation within 2 years of publication). It's sketchy but doesn't say much about the article, only the journal.
- epistasis 5y agoNothing sketchy about the journal either. The next issue may come out in August due to the publication schedule and article queue. But there's no reason to delay availability of the article after it's addressed all the reviewer and editorial concerns.
- bob1029 5y agoMolten salt is going to be way more efficient on a round-trip basis. According to wikipedia, its something like 70% for molten salt, and 25% for cryogenic. There are likely other engineering factors involved, but those efficiency figures are pretty damning on the surface.
- ajnin 5y ago> 25% for cryogenic Also from Wikipedia, the efficiency if 25% if you let the heat of liquefaction and the "cold" of vaporization go to waste, but it can be improved to 70% if you store that heat and re-inject it in the cycle.
- Cthulhu_ 5y agoI'd think one major issue at this scale would be heat generated when pressurizing, and heat lost (= freezing) when depressurizing, the latter which could cause weakness and damage in any materials affected. But, I'm not a scientist or anything, take this armchair take with a grain of salt - there's other places where they do a lot with compression/decompression at scale, e.g. natural gas storage and transport.
- whoknowswhat11 5y agoI've pumped scuba tanks and other light pressure stuff - in those applications a fair bit of energy is lost to waste heat. Curious how this is handled in terms of efficiency
- mschuster91 5y agoThe article is a bit light on details, but I'd guess that both heat and cold generation (due to compression and decompression of the air) could be used for a district cooling system.
- fghorow 5y agoThe company's "technology description" video makes clear that storage of both "waste" heat and cool is an explicit part of their system.
- twobitshifter 5y agoHeat is the output of the depressurization process so I would think that would not be a problem.
- tgtweak 5y agoInteresting concept. At $150,000,000 for 500MwH = $300/KwH of energy storage. Tesla's Megapack solution is $300/KwH also, giving this a good running chance if they can get costs down with scale. I like that it can potentially run for decades without chemical degradation, and that it is environmentally friendly since most of the parts (compressors, dryers, generators, tanks) can be recycled down the line with minimal environmental impact. Things that seem concerning at first glance: * Maintaining sub -196'C requires a lot of complex refrigeration, monitoring and pressurization equipment, which can be prone to failure (see Hampson–Linde cycle). The expansion factor of liquid air to air is roughly 800x. * Round-trip energy efficiency: I can't see a system taking electrical input to produce liquid air on the way in and similarly to run a turbine generator on the other end without having substantial losses both ways... I believe Tesla is around 88% on their system. * Gasses used in refrigeration continue to be an environmental and health concern even with modern compounds. Hopefully with some cost scaling or proof of longevity it can be a valid solution. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hampson%E2%80%93Linde_cycle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hampson%E2%80%93Linde_cycle
- Robotbeat 5y agoI mean… you can recycle batteries, too. And the environmental “issue” with batteries is largely a red herring (steel mining and even recycling would look bad if you had a campaign of misinformation against it like batteries do, cherry-picking dramatic industrial-scale images without comparison with what it is replacing). $300/kWh isn’t anything to really write home about. Not opposed to it, though. While I don’t think it’s a slam-dunk win against batteries by any stretch, it’s good enough not to be a waste of money if someone builds one (which is probably true for that cement-block gravity energy storage thing).
- BurningFrog 5y agoCouldn't find anything describing any details of the actual technology, even in the FAQ (https://highviewpower.com/faq/ https://highviewpower.com/faq/). Mostly wondering where and how they store the liquid air. Metal tanks? Underground caverns?
- ncmncm 5y agoMetal tanks. Liquified air is pretty compact. Probably, as the tech matures they will move to burying them, and the heat reservoirs too. For a pilot plant, keeping everything exposed and maintainable is important. As they get bigger, storing the heat removed in molten salt might prove useful. The tradeoff of excellent underground insulation vs. accessibility for maintenance is tricky. For the case of molten salt, expectation of corrosion complicates it further. With any luck, plummeting aerogel insulation cost will make the question moot.
- driverdan 5y agoThis press release doesn't say anything about system efficiency. If it was high they'd be promoting that fact. Since it involves refrigeration it's probably quite low. That makes me wonder why they went with this system.
- rsynnott 5y agoThey claim 70%: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryogenic_energy_storage#Efficiency https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryogenic_energy_storage#Effic... > That makes me wonder why they went with this system. Cost, presumably. The stated figures would give $300/kWh, which seems to be about where the all-in cost for lithium ion facilities lands, but this would likely have a longer lifespan.
- Gibbon1 5y agoOffhand impression. With thermal storage systems. Round trip efficiency numbers range from really bad at 50%. To really good at 80%. Batteries are probably 80-90 percent efficient. Notably to me is that cost per mega watt hour varies a lot more than two to one. Which says to me energy storage is economically feasible using a number of different technlogies.
- rsynnott 5y agoI mean, yes. In general, the problem these systems are trying to solve is "ugh, we have too much electricity right now, why can't we use it later" (in particular, areas with a lot of wind generation often have to stop the turbines spinning). At time of storage, the energy is essentially free (or of negative value, really; in the absence of storage the excess energy is a _problem_) so efficiency of storage is much less important than facility cost per MW.
- markvdb 5y agoLow-tech magazine has run a few quite interesting articles about storing energy in compressed air. [0] [0] https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/compressed-air/ https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/compressed-air/
- c_o_n_v_e_x 5y agoCurious as to whether they'll capture the carbon they'll be taking in. Additional revenue stream perhaps?