Highview Power and Encore Renewable Energy to co-develop the first long-duration, liquid-air energy storage system in US
28 December 2019
Highview Power Storage, Inc., a provider of long duration energy storage solutions, and Encore Renewable Energy, a developer of renewable energy generation and storage projects, jointly announced plans to develop the United States’ first long-duration, liquid-air energy storage system. This facility will be a minimum of 50MW, provide in excess of eight hours of storage (400MWh) and will be located in northern Vermont.
With Highview Power’s liquid air energy storage solution, excess or off-peak electricity is used to clean and compress air which is then stored in liquid form in insulated tanks at temperatures approaching -320 ˚F (-196 ˚C). When electricity is in high demand and more valuable, the pressurized gas is allowed to warm, turning a turbine as it expands and thus generating energy that can be used at peak times when the sun is not shining and the wind is not blowing.
Highview Power’s proprietary liquid air energy storage system, called CRYOBattery, relies on low-risk, proven technology, generates zero emissions, has zero water impact and can be delivered at a cost of approximately half of the current cost of traditional lithium-ion batteries. At utility-scale, Highview Power’s long duration energy storage systems paired with renewables are equivalent in performance to fossil fuel powered thermal and nuclear baseload power.
The US energy storage market is expected to surge over 700% to nearly $5.4 billion by 2024, driven mostly by utility-scale projects, according to analyst firm Wood Mackenzie Power & Renewables.
The project is the first of many utility-scale, liquid air energy storage projects that Highview Power plans to develop across the United States to help scale up renewable energy deployment. The Vermont facility will contribute to resolving the longstanding energy transmission challenges surrounding the state’s Sheffield-Highgate Export Interface (SHEI) and enable the efficient transport of excess power from renewable energy sources, such as solar and wind power to help integrate them on the power grid.
In addition to supplying clean, reliable, and cost-efficient energy storage, the facility to be developed by Highview Power and Encore will provide valuable services to the area’s transmission system to help integrate renewable energy, stabilize the regional electrical grid, and ensure future energy security during storms and other disruptions. This includes the ability to store energy for weeks at the lowest levelized cost of long duration storage in the industry, and providing what is called “grid-synchronous inertia,” which balances electrical demand and supply and helps avoid blackouts.
Other services the facility can deliver include market arbitrage, frequency management, reserve, and grid constraint management services. Highview Power and Encore are in discussions with potential utility and transmission grid operator customers regarding the capabilities and services the facility can provide.
I like this one.
The cost and also the durability of batteries just aren't of the right order to do more than frequency regulation etc.
On their website they give round trip efficiency as 60-75%:
https://www.highviewpower.com/technology/
That is in the 'good enough' area.
However, when they talk about enabling long term storage, on the facts page they tell us that they are referring to days, not months:
' What do we mean by true long duration energy storage?
We are referring to energy storage systems with durations upwards of 4 hours up to days at a time. Long duration is required for applications related to security of supply (e.g. Capacity Markets, Black Start, network investment deferral) and renewable curtailment reduction, and when the revenue stack includes at least one of these applications.'
https://www.highviewpower.com/faq/
For seasonal storage we are looking at chemicals, hydrogen et al.
Posted by: Davemart | 28 December 2019 at 02:12 AM
This takes energy to keep the liquid cold.
Posted by: SJC | 28 December 2019 at 05:30 AM
SJC, stating the bleeding obvious just so you can see your words on the screen is the opposite of contributing.
Davemart, Highview's cost of storage was stated as $140/MWh in the prior post. That's $0.14/kWh JUST for storage; the power to feed it is extra. I don't see this going very far until that figure is cut by a factor of 3.
Posted by: Engineer-Poet | 28 December 2019 at 07:56 AM
Insulting people is the opposite of sanity.
Posted by: SJC | 28 December 2019 at 11:04 PM
If a gas turbine and salt cavern storage is available, seasonal storage via hydrogen is cheap. Hydrogen pipelines are being built out across the US and EU, and turbines retrofitted. If no cavern storage is available (this could be an empty gas field), hydrogen could be stored in retrofitted NG tanks. Hydrogen requires a polythelyene barrier to prevent escape.
Posted by: H2research | 28 December 2019 at 11:10 PM
As a hydrogen advcate I like to give any competing technology the benefit of the doubt, but in this case perhaps I was being rather too generous.
Hydrogen can store energy in far larger quantitites for far longer periods, and if the same methods are used such as the use of industrial process heat etc then the round trip efficiency is perhaps within shouting distance.
The pre-existing NG pipeline network alone with minor upgrades provides the storage capability for enormous quantities of hydrogen from surplus renewables, exactly the same resource which Highpower is relying on for this.
Posted by: Davemart | 29 December 2019 at 12:40 AM
The hypedrogen propagandist wrote:
IF you have a reservoir without sulfur-containing minerals, and IF you can afford the huge round-trip losses.Natural gas isn't stored in tanks because it's far too bulky. Hydrogen is multiples of the bulk of methane. At 22.4 liters/mol at STP, one scm of gas is 44.64 moles. This holds 714 grams of methane (35.7 MJ LHV) but just 89.3 grams of H2 (10.7 MJ LHV). You can't afford the tanks to hold what you'd need; not for methane, and not for hypedrogen.
Making a "hydrogen economy" is doing things almost the hardest way possible. This means using fossil fuels for a long time to come, and also maintaining market opportunities for reformed natural gas and gasified coal. This is not an accident; fossil-fuel companies are pushing hydrogen to stay in the game.
Posted by: Engineer-Poet | 29 December 2019 at 05:43 AM
Posted by: Engineer-Poet | 29 December 2019 at 05:44 AM
There is another generation scheme, it involved carbon dioxide and some other off the shelf components to generate and I don't remember the presentation on YouTube.
Posted by: Bill_swinnea | 29 December 2019 at 06:02 AM
EP
Keep insulting by keyboard, safe in your EGOsphere.
Posted by: SJC | 29 December 2019 at 07:36 AM
If the un-embellished truth is an insult to you, SJC, the problem is not the truth. It's you.
Posted by: Engineer-Poet | 29 December 2019 at 11:49 AM
I believe that the high end of the quoted efficiency range requires waste heat. If you are hoping for an energy system powered primarily by renewables then a question arises as to where the waste heat will come from.
Posted by: Roger Brown | 30 December 2019 at 08:04 AM