Energy and exergy analysis of a micro-compressed air energy storage and air cycle heating and cooling system

Abstract The balance between supply and demand for electricity is mainly disrupted by the growing contribution of renewable energy sources to the electrical grid since these sources are intermittent by nature. Therefore, the energy storage systems, mainly those of considerable size, become essential to restore the electricity balance. The compressed air energy storage (CAES) system is one of the mature technologies used to store electricity on a large scale. Therefore, this article discusses the energy and exergy analysis of different configurations of a constant-pressure CAES system to improve its overall efficiency and energy density. The exergy efficiency of our basic adiabatic configuration using water as thermal storage medium is 56.4% and the energy density is 12.17 kWh/m3. The results show that the CAES system using a packed bed of quartzite rock as thermal storage medium has the best efficiency (67.2%) and energy density (17 kWh/m3) among adiabatic systems. The diabatic CAES systems could have a net efficiency up to 70.1% and an energy density up to 31.95 kWh/m3 by using combustion chambers. Finally, the waste heat recovery from other installations such as a gas turbine power plant has the potential to improve the energy density to 20.53 kWh/m3 without using fossil fuel sources.

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Energy and Exergy Analysis of Ocean Compressed Air Energy Storage Concepts

Journal of Engineering ◽

10.1155/2018/5254102 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 2018 ◽

pp. 1-14 ◽

Cited By ~ 7

Author(s):

Vikram C. Patil ◽

Paul I. Ro

Keyword(s):

Heat Transfer ◽

Energy Storage ◽

Heat Transfer Enhancement ◽

Exergy Analysis ◽

Compressed Air ◽

Compressed Air Energy Storage ◽

Transfer Enhancement ◽

Energy And Exergy ◽

Energy And Exergy Analysis ◽

Liquid Piston

Optimal utilization of renewable energy resources needs energy storage capability in integration with the electric grid. Ocean compressed air energy storage (OCAES) can provide promising large-scale energy storage. In OCAES, energy is stored in the form of compressed air under the ocean. Underwater energy storage results in a constant-pressure storage system which has potential to show high efficiency compared to constant-volume energy storage. Various OCAES concepts, namely, diabatic, adiabatic, and isothermal OCAES, are possible based on the handling of heat in the system. These OCAES concepts are assessed using energy and exergy analysis in this paper. Roundtrip efficiency of liquid piston based OCAES is also investigated using an experimental liquid piston compressor. Further, the potential of improved efficiency of liquid piston based OCAES with use of various heat transfer enhancement techniques is investigated. Results show that adiabatic OCAES shows improved efficiency over diabatic OCAES by storing thermal exergy in thermal energy storage and isothermal OCAES shows significantly higher efficiency over adiabatic and diabatic OCAES. Liquid piston based OCAES is estimated to show roundtrip efficiency of about 45% and use of heat transfer enhancement in liquid piston has potential to improve roundtrip efficiency of liquid piston based OCAES up to 62%.

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