A team of Chinese researchers has made a energy storage breakthrough in improving the storage efficiency of renewable energy.

The technological achievement was made at the world’s largest advanced compressed air energy storage (CAES) system, located in Hebei province. The 100-megawatt facility achieved a record in efficiency during a recent test run, and will be put into commercial operation by the end of this year, according to an announcement on Tuesday on the website of the Institute of Engineering Thermophysics (IET), Chinese Academy of Sciences. energy storage breakthrough The project is being led by the same team that designed the world’s first 1.5MW and 10MW national CAES demonstration systems. Energy storage systems are widely used to collect energy generated from solar panels and wind farms, or to balance the loads of an electrical grid. The systems store energy during periods of low demand and release it during peak load periods. Typical energy storage systems have included mainstream pumped hydroelectric energy storage (PHES), which use water, and the popular battery energy storage (BESS) system, which rely on various types of batteries. The CAES system uses compressed air as a working medium. Pump storage has a relatively long lifespan and a conversion efficiency rate of 75 per cent, but it has highly specific site requirements and necessitates long construction periods. Battery storage boasts a higher conversion efficiency rate of 90 per cent, but the life cycle of the systems is limited and battery costs remain high.

By comparison, the CAES system has certain advantages – long lifespans, low costs, easy to construct and an environmentally friendly conversion process that offers an overall conversion efficiency of 70 per cent, according to a report by the Global Energy Interconnection Development and Cooperation Organization in March 2020. CAES works by storing compressed air in hard rock formations underground. High performance electric centrifugal pumps compress the air to 140 atmospheres. energy storage breakthrough, When the high pressure air is released, it pushes generator blades to make electricity.The core component of the system is a heat collection device. It collects the heat generated in the compression process and then stores it. The device later uses that heat to raise the temperature of the compressed air during its release to increase the output power. The efficiency of the device is directly related to the overall conversion efficiency of the system.

Source: This news is originally published by scmp

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