Compressed air energy storage 2025

How can compressed air energy storage improve the stability of China's power grid?

The intermittent nature of renewable energy poses challenges to the stability of the existing power grid. Compressed Air Energy Storage (CAES) that stores energy in the form of high-pressure air has the potential to deal with the unstable supply of renewable energy at large scale in China.

What is compressed air energy storage (CAES)?

Compressed air energy storage (CAES) is an effective solution for balancing this mismatch and therefore is suitable for use in future electrical systems to achieve a high penetration of renewable energy generation.

Is China moving into advanced compressed air energy storage?

China is moving big into advanced compressed air energy storage. Image: China Energy Storage Alliance For decades, global scientists have searched for low-cost methods to store excess electricity generated during non-peak hours for use during peak times. Yet both of the two most commonly used methods have serious limitations.

Where is compressed air stored?

Compressed air is stored in underground caverns or up ground vessels , . The CAES technology has existed for more than four decades. However, only Germany (Huntorf CAES plant) and the United States (McIntosh CAES plant) operate full-scale CAES systems, which are conventional CAES systems that use fuel in operation , .

Which energy storage technology is most suitable for large-scale energy storage?

Among the available energy storage technologies, Compressed Air Energy Storage (CAES) has proved to be the most suitable technology for large-scale energy storage, in addition to PHES .

Is underground air storage a viable energy storage option?

Underground air storage is a large-scale energy storage option with relatively low cost (Table 3). The two existing commercial CAES plants, the Huntorf plant the McIntosh plant, both use underground salt cavern for energy storage.