GS isn't known for their scientific prowess - signal that they believe there is money in large scale ESS. Not sure if it's validating the technology at all though. Compressed air has been around for a long time at this point.
Goldman Sachs invests $250M in compressed air energy storage
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Re: Goldman Sachs invests $250M in compressed air energy storage
#12Interesting. There's a good video describing the operation here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOWjwwKSR78 After watching it, I now understand that they aren't flooding the entire borehole, but rather are building a smaller high-pressure chamber at the bottom. The chamber is connected to pipes to a surface reservoir. When air is pumped into the chamber, it displaces water up toward the surface. When generating, the…
What goes into building and burying large scale underground structures like those air caverns?
Re: Goldman Sachs invests $250M in compressed air energy storage
#13[deleted]
Re: Goldman Sachs invests $250M in compressed air energy storage
#14Does this technology only work in select places or are underground caverns fairly commonplace?
Re: Goldman Sachs invests $250M in compressed air energy storage
#15[deleted]
Would energy storage not be a good use of that money? Society is facing a large problem: climate change. One way to reduce the impact of climate change is to use renewable energy like solar and wind. Solar and wind have a big problem; they can't be turned on and off. That means to displace fossil fuels, we need to store energy when it's sunny and windy, and release that energy when it's not. Hence, things like compressed air energy storage. This is the kind of technology that can prevent entire cities from disappearing over the next 100 years. Seems pretty valuable to me.
Re: Goldman Sachs invests $250M in compressed air energy storage
#16Is this similar to a trompe? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trompe
Re: Goldman Sachs invests $250M in compressed air energy storage
#17Interesting. There's a good video describing the operation here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOWjwwKSR78 After watching it, I now understand that they aren't flooding the entire borehole, but rather are building a smaller high-pressure chamber at the bottom. The chamber is connected to pipes to a surface reservoir. When air is pumped into the chamber, it displaces water up toward the surface. When generating, the…
What goes into building and burying large scale underground structures like those air caverns?
Not much, technologically this is a conventional mine project, only that you mine air volume instead of rock and have to take care of the cavern being reasonably airtight afterwards.
Re: Goldman Sachs invests $250M in compressed air energy storage
#18This isn't new...I recall grad students working on this as far back as 2010.
Some citations from an article: “Bottled wind could be as constant as coal.” Wired Magazine. Retrieved 7/15/2010, 2010, from http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/03/compressedair-plan... 59
Cavallo, A. (2005). Controllable and affordable utility-scale electricity from intermittent wind resources and compressed air energy storage (CAES). Science Direct.
Re: Goldman Sachs invests $250M in compressed air energy storage
#19How does the economics of this look like, and how do they intended to get back the investment. If its to buy low when wind/solar production is high and sell when production is low, what will the cost per watt be? If its subsidies, how much will this cost the government?
The article seem to mostly describe this as a technology project to test the technology at scale, but they do also mention profits. Is the basic premise of buy low sell high, exclusively on renewables, enough to offset the cost from energy conversion, building, staff and other costs, and if so, by what degree compared to other method to produce energy? When is it estimated to have paid its initial investment?
Re: Goldman Sachs invests $250M in compressed air energy storage
#20Interesting. There's a good video describing the operation here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOWjwwKSR78 After watching it, I now understand that they aren't flooding the entire borehole, but rather are building a smaller high-pressure chamber at the bottom. The chamber is connected to pipes to a surface reservoir. When air is pumped into the chamber, it displaces water up toward the surface. When generating, the…
I wonder what is the loss/recovery %age.