If more electricity is available than is required, intelligent storage solutions are required. In China, electricity is now being stored on a large scale using compressed air.
Stores surplus energy by air – CAES power plant in North China. (Source: Chinese Academy of Sciences)
- The world’s largest and most efficient compressed air energy storage power plant (CAES) has gone into operation in the northern Chinese city of Zhangjiakou.
- It stores up to 400 megawatt hours of energy.
- Expensive and rare lithium can be dispensed with as a storage medium.
If solar systems or wind farms produce more electricity at peak times than can be consumed, intelligent storage solutions are needed. One possible solution could be pumped storage power plants. According to Asia Times, China intends to rely more on so-called CAES power plants in the future. Here, compressed air serves as a storage medium.
The largest and most efficient power plant of its kind to date went into operation in Zhangjiakou this week. It can store 400 megawatt hours of energy. According to the China Energy Storage Alliance, the efficiency is 70.4 percent. Systems of this type usually achieve an efficiency of 40 to 50 percent.
The compressed air storage power plant is to provide 132 gigawatt hours of green energy annually and supply up to 60,000 households. The savings in harmful CO2 emissions are given as 109,000 tons per year.
In other parts of the world there are currently only a few such systems in operation. In Germany there is a CAES power plant in Huntorf, Lower Saxony. However, this is a combined compressed air storage gas turbine power plant. In contrast to this, no gas is burned in the Chinese plant in order to release the stored energy again. Do you want to become less dependent on the power grid yourself and protect yourself from blackouts?
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