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Ditch the Batteries: Off-Grid Compressed Air Energy Storage

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Re: Ditch the Batteries: Off-Grid Compressed Air Energy Storage

#151

Post by naravara »

drizzle87 wrote: post #24

I was quite excited by compressed air storage when Lightsail came into the picture almost 5-7 years ago. Sadly, they could not make the economics work and ended up pivoting into a company that sells carbon fibre tanks for high-pressure storage. As someone who follows the energy space closely, Lithium ion batteries now have so much momentum and $$$ pumped into them via R&D work, it's going to be hard for competing ene…

>As someone who follows the energy space closely, Lithium ion batteries now have so much momentum and $$$ pumped into them via R&D work, it's going to be hard for competing energy storage technologies to catch up. Flywheel and hydrogen fuel-cell also often come up but I think we're at a point now where batteries are going to take off simply because of their wide area of applicability. With that economy of scale costs will drive down and even more research and $$$ will flow.

I've been surprised by the development honestly. 15 years ago I assumed heavy industry and automotive would make the big decisions about what energy storage tech we go with and the rest of the economy would follow suit and start working with either hydrogen fuels cells, supercapacitors, kinetic storage, or chemical batteries based on the R&D they did.

Instead it's been consumer electronics that led the way and heavy industry is stuck with chemical batteries because that's what worked best on an MP3 player.

Re: Ditch the Batteries: Off-Grid Compressed Air Energy Storage

#152

Post by andyidsinga »

Its really interesting that they can get up to the efficiency of led acid batteries in applications for rural areas. I wonder if maintaining that large air tank is more difficult / costly than maintaining the batteries.

Its also interesting that we're only talking about 116 PSI - I'm guessing CFM is more important.

> A simulation for a stand-alone CAES aimed at unpowered rural areas, and which is connected to a solar PV system and used for lighting only, operates at a relatively low air pressure of 8 bar and obtains a round-trip efficiency of 60% -- comparable to the efficiency of lead-acid batteries. [7] However, to store 360 Wh of potential electrical energy, the system requires a storage reservoir of 18 m3, the size of a small room measuring 3x3x2 metres. The authors note that “although the tank size appears very large, it still makes sense for applications in rural areas”.

Re: Ditch the Batteries: Off-Grid Compressed Air Energy Storage

#153

Post by naravara »

ballenf wrote: post #114
dwyerm wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's a fairly energetic explosion So is a lithium battery explosion. So is a gasoline explosion. So is a flour mill explosion. So is a wind turbine explosion. Energy is energy, and losing control of energy is never great, no matter where it comes from. So while I catch your meaning, it might be better to phrase it with respect to how controllable that energy is. From what I know of flywheel storage, the problem mos…

Also flywheels don't give off noxious fumes during failure.

For now. If you want to use one for long term energy storage, though, you're going to need to invent some kind of room temperature superconductor and frictionless surfaces. Who knows whether those would be noxious or not.

Re: Ditch the Batteries: Off-Grid Compressed Air Energy Storage

#154

Post by jacquesm »

drizzle87 wrote: post #24

I was quite excited by compressed air storage when Lightsail came into the picture almost 5-7 years ago. Sadly, they could not make the economics work and ended up pivoting into a company that sells carbon fibre tanks for high-pressure storage. As someone who follows the energy space closely, Lithium ion batteries now have so much momentum and $$$ pumped into them via R&D work, it's going to be hard for competing ene…

There is still one more possible alternative, if only we can get the physics to work: room temperature super conduction. That - if it ever comes to fruit - is going to cause a whole pile of revolutions and unlike most other ideas that rest upon unobtanium actually has a chance of success.

Re: Ditch the Batteries: Off-Grid Compressed Air Energy Storage

#155

Post by swebs »

mabbo wrote: post #31

> However, to store 360 Wh of potential electrical energy, the system requires a storage reservoir of 18 m3, the size of a small room measuring 3x3x2 metres. The authors note that “although the tank size appears very large, it still makes sense for applications in rural areas”. This would light a home for an hour, with LED bulbs and careful usage. And all it requires is a room-sized storage tank. So if I wanted somet…

An LED light bulb uses 11 watts. You must be lighting your home with 33 bulbs if that only lasts you an hour. If you only use 4 bulbs, that will last over 8 hours.

Re: Ditch the Batteries: Off-Grid Compressed Air Energy Storage

#158

Post by reaperducer »

jandrese wrote: post #62
mabbo wrote: post #31

> However, to store 360 Wh of potential electrical energy, the system requires a storage reservoir of 18 m3, the size of a small room measuring 3x3x2 metres. The authors note that “although the tank size appears very large, it still makes sense for applications in rural areas”. This would light a home for an hour, with LED bulbs and careful usage. And all it requires is a room-sized storage tank. So if I wanted somet…

For home use you also have to consider that you're basically making a bomb every time you store energy in the thing.

>For home use you also have to consider that you're basically making a bomb every time you store energy in the thing.

No different than people who have LP tanks outside their homes. Or fuel oil tanks buried in their yards. Or coal bins in their basements. Or natural gas lines coming their house. Or pretty much any other storage method except a dam for your water wheel, but even that can burst and flood your home.

Re: Ditch the Batteries: Off-Grid Compressed Air Energy Storage

#159

Post by Florin_Andrei »

dwyerm wrote: post #89
throwaway5752 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a video somewhere of a failing flywheel, it's a fairly energetic explosion. I follow the energy space, also, and ... while I didn't expect Li batteries to have grid scale roles, I didn't think flywheels were going to succeed there. They have properties more like ultracapacitors (discharge rate suitable for continuous backup, clean up messy grid sine waves). I thought pumped air/pumped water was more likely be…

> it's a fairly energetic explosion So is a lithium battery explosion. So is a gasoline explosion. So is a flour mill explosion. So is a wind turbine explosion. Energy is energy, and losing control of energy is never great, no matter where it comes from. So while I catch your meaning, it might be better to phrase it with respect to how controllable that energy is. From what I know of flywheel storage, the problem mos…

> So is a lithium battery explosion. So is a gasoline explosion. So is a flour mill explosion. So is a wind turbine explosion.

No, they're not all the same.

Compressed air, flywheel, flour mill - very dramatic events.

Lithium battery - much more mild, typically.

Gasoline - it depends.

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