Guest essay by Eric Worrall
The CCP has decreed that five years from now, batteries and compressed air energy storage prices will drop by 30%. But even if these promises are more than hot air, a 30% reduction is nowhere near enough.
Climate Change: China to slash costs of energy-storage systems for industry to leapfrog the world by 2030, according to five-year plan
The production cost of large chemicals-based energy-storage systems will be cut by 30 per cent by 2025, putting the industry on path to leapfrog the world by 2030Compressed air energy-storage technology would realise “engineering applications” in units with 100 megawatts of capacity, according to the government’s plan
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Published: 8:30am, 24 Feb, 2022China’s government plans to cut the cost of energy storage systems by 2025 to help local industries leapfrog the world as the vanguard of novel energy storage technology five years later.
The production cost of large chemicals-based systems will be cut by 30 per cent by 2025, while compressed air energy-storage technology would realise “engineering applications” in units with 100 megawatts of capacity, according to a five-year plan drafted by the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) and the National Energy Administration (NEA). The document has been sent to local government and central government-administered enterprises for implementation.
“By 2030, China’s new energy storage should see well-rounded market-based development, with proprietary technology, world leading innovation and manufacturing capabilities,” said the industry development plan for 2021-25.
Energy storage is a key part of the Chinese government strategy to decarbonise the energy system and put the world’s second-largest economy on the path to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060. Affordable energy storage is vital in turning solar and wind energy into commercially viable substitutes of fossil-fuel energy, helping to compensate for the industry’s volatility and reliance on weather patterns.
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Read more: https://www.scmp.com/business/article/3168078/climate-change-china-slash-costs-energy-storage-systems-industry-leapfrog
In my opinion there is a very obvious tell that these promises were drafted by politicians rather than engineers.
Compressed air energy storage suffers a fatal thermodynamic flaw.
When you compress a gas, the gas heats up. When you decompress the gas, to withdraw energy from your storage unit, the gas sucks heat out of the environment. Ice starts rapidly forming around the decompression system.
Ice is a good heat insulator. This is a big problem, especially in winter, because unless the decompressed air heats up to ambient temperature before it is used to drive a turbine, you lose an unacceptable amount of the energy you tried to store. So you either have to severely limit decompression / energy withdrawal rates, to minimise ice formation, or you have to chip away and physically remove the ice as it forms.
A serious compressed air storage system would produce a lot of ice.
Maybe China has a solution – they have some pretty clever engineers. But in my opinion, compressed air storage is a technology which appeals more to accountants and politicians than to engineers. Looks great on paper, awful in practice.
“The production cost of large chemicals-based systems will be cut by 30 per cent by 2025″
They are obviously going to make batteries that utilize the thermal properties of burning batteries.
Everyone thought those burning hulks were bugs in design. They were just prototypes with a new feature. 😉
Sure. Compressed gas is used to power tools everywhere…
First thing we learn is that when compressed gas cools, the water in the air condenses out.
Water traps are installed in compressed air lines and we workers were required to drain the water before using attached tools.
Gasses compress, water does not, comparatively.
Most compressed gas users have motors installed to keep the air pressure up.
Units running solely on compressed gas lose energy as compressed air becomes less compressed.
When I worked at US Steel, a couple of times per year us smaller laborers had to climb inside large compressed air storage tanks and sandblast the interiors free of rust.
Afterwards, we had to carry special paint inside the tanks and paint the insides. At least until we started fainting.
It was such a fun job, that I etched into the inside metal ‘IHTFP’ with the sandblaster. If you don’t know what that means, perhaps it’s best that way.
Of course, fate took a hand and the head foreman for our area picked a tank and climbed in the tank to check our work… Where my etched acronym could be clearly seen. My foreman was mortified, or so he said between laughs.
Steel tanks work excellently. Since they’re kept in one place, there is no need for aluminum.
“I Have Truly Found Paradise”? At least that’s what you tell the supervisor who catches you doing it.
Is this the new CCP five year plan? But we’ll have fusion energy by then, right? Fifteen years ago, pundits said fusion would be generating, cheap, clean power in twenty years.
Have they stolen the technology from the West to do this or are they going to develop it themselves?
I believe gravity storage can be done without a hydro dam.
Hydro dams need a supply of water. But a gravity battery only needs to fill once then allow for evaporation.
Hydro dams allow you to store months worth of baseline power. Something beyond the wildest dream for batterys. Gravity storage can be much smaller than a hydro dam.
It would seem anywhere with a cliff a couple of hundred feet high could be suitable. A reservoir top and bottom with a penstock between with a pump/turbine at the base. In most climates rainfall exceeds evaporation.
The size of the reservoir would determine how many days power could be stored. These could be simple poly line earthworks.
Batteries are mobile but why do you need that for grid storage. It would seem that you dont need a dam site to make a gravity storage system.
All the tech already rxists to build these gravity storage systems today.
Fredberple,
Thanks.
Not sure why the downvotes.
However, these ideas seem to attract local opposition – NIMBY might be alive n well.
And, of course, the watermelons will oppose anything that works (even if not very economically).
The Coulsdon suggestion, at Rickman Hill, seems to be an epitome.
The use of half the Recreation Ground, @Rickman Hill Park, is anecdotally opposed by many of those living facing the park. This despite potentially having an area of perhaps a hectare, with a head of about 50-60 metres (perhaps more if an artificial upwards extension is added).
London is substantially surrounded by hills.
It may be possible to find other potential sites around London.
Economically – ahh . . .
Possibly a more difficult questions.
Auto.
absolutely…
This project uses two old mining pits for the upper and lower reservoirs…
World-first Australian project repurposing mine pits for pumped hydro – Genex Power
Yikes! Griff and I agree. Don’t cancel me climate gods. I will wear the hair shirt.
“When you compress a gas, the gas heats up“.
pv = nRT is a statement of the physical mechanism that pressure is caused by the motion of molecules.
That is T causes p Gay- Lussac Law
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pVVZGOBIVg
p does not cause T
Can you link to a lab demo of p causes T ?
The lab demo is the simple bicycle tyre pump ! Yes it is a thermodynamically naive statement to say p “causes” T, but most people won’t understand thermodynamics.
It’s certainly true that compressing air makes it hotter and releasing it into the atmosphere makes it colder, and that is all that most people need to know.
Would you accept the operation of a diesel engine as a lab demo? A compression ratio of roughly 24:1 is sufficient to generate enough heat to ignite the fuel-air mixture.
When scuba tanks are filled from a compressor, they should be immersed in water to cool the heated air inside. Otherwise you get a “short fill” when the tank eventually cools and the pressure drops.
Also scuba tanks suffer from thermal stress while charging, especially when charged quickly from a storage bank.
This is from many years ago but there was a story that an alloy/alu tank had failed explosively as a result.
We never charged tanks without cooling afterwards.
The UK govt yesterday announced £6.7 million for 24 long term storage pilot projects… including a second stage of the existing compressed air pilot already operating on a small scale.
Not just the Chinese pushing into long term storage…
No, there is a ready supply of fools.
At c£280,000 per project I woudn’t call that “pushing long term storage”
Do NOT store energy! Stored energy is ALWAYS dangerous, and large amounts of stored energy are disasters waiting to happen….
Hmm…
Did anyone else notice the lack of mention of lithium? Or the absence of the term “energy density?”
Lead-acid and Carbon-foam-acid batteries are already less than 1/3 the price of lithium. If one was to avoid bio-hazardous material and pollution costs, they could be much less expensive.
“Chemical energy storage” is can also describe methanol and syngas. Also petroleum, natural gas and coal.
Just ought to mention that a couple ways to make a commodity 30% cheaper might be to use slave labor or to force pricing via a cartel or oligopoly. A price reduction of 30% might not make much of a difference if there’s more than 10% inflation.
Did anyone notice that they didn’t mention export?
After seeing the mess unravel in Europe, can anyone suggest why it’s a good idea to remove your own energy independence and become 100% dependent on RE products from China ?
Thin news day today ??
Don’t you think some clever engineers would solve the ice problem in a modern large scale energy storage plant ?!
In any case, the idea is to store the compression heat (e.g. in rocks) and use it to heat up the decompressing air. This also increases the cycle efficiency, which would be around 50% without it. With the re-heating stage it could be 70-80% efficient.
The power system doesn’t have a valuable use for energy storage.
Storage does two jobs. 1) It prevents curtailment of RE. 2) It provides capacity*
Getting paid to prevent curtailments means that your storage system is ready to consume energy when others aren’t. This somewhat impedes your ability to do your other job. You want to be fully charged to provide capacity. You want to be at partial charge to prevent curtailment. If you get either one wrong, there are substantial performance penalties – and sometimes people die in the cold.
You provide capacity – but only until you are out of charge. If the maximum capacity event is a week long – like many winter storms are – then you need to be at least a week long battery. If there’s the slightest chance that two of these storms hit in a row, then you need to be a two weeks battery. In real life, the solution is to have a battery and a generator. The battery reduces the number of times per year that the generator starts.
Starts determine maintenance costs, so this job is worth something. Fuel costs aren’t a significant driver of economics for this type of plant.
This Canadian firm is already working on compressed air energy storage projects in Canada and Australia – and look who invested…
Goldman Sachs invests $250m in Hydrostor compressed air energy storage – DCD (datacenterdynamics.com)
Maybe they’ll burn the ice off with coal.
Most of them use natural gas to heat the air before expanding the air through a turbine/generator. This does not endear them to greenies but does improve their load levelling performance.
Interestingly, the best way to load-level always works out to NOT buy electricity at the low price, and generate electricity with a natural gas driver at high-price time….hahaha….
Actually, in hot climes, having the compressed air cool down could be a benefit.
https://www.downtoearth.org.in/blog/air/compressed-air-vehicles-can-be-a-potential-mode-of-urban-transport-in-india-62987
I think the Chinese may be technically correct in saying that prices will be 30% less in 2030… they just left off ‘based on the Yuan’. If measuring in dollars, it will be twice as much.
Reads like one of those Five Year Plans (1920s-1991) or a Great Leap Forward plan (1950s-60s) that were popular in the USSR and Red China. These plans were so successful that the 13th soviet plan lasted only 1 year due to the economic collapse of the USSR in 1991.
Accordingbto this source: https://news.energysage.com/tesla-powerwall-battery-complete-review/
A Tesla powerwall costs about $14k for 14kwh installed. So, to run a 2kw heater for 24 hours you need about $50 thousand worth of vatteries.
$50 thousand to run a heater for a day!! Now a 500 ton weight might seem like a lot. It is a cube of water less than 4 meters on edge.
Or you can buy a 2kw genwrator for $500 and fuel it with less than $20 worth of gas and also run the heater for 24 hours.