From Wind To Compressed Air : Blog : GE Global Research

From wind to compressed air

Wind blows night and day. You only get one chance to extract the energy of a passing breeze by a wind turbine. In an effort to make wind energy more like traditional fossil generation, large-scale energy storage to deliver the energy when needed would be highly beneficial.

The concept of adiabatic Compressed Air Energy Storage (CAES) is a promising candidate, representing an emission-free storage technology with a high storage efficiency, a large power capacity and a potentially competitive cost. The idea is to store inexpensive base-load power during off-peak periods in the form of compressed air and deliver this power during peak demand.

Existing CAES plants in Huntorf (Germany) and in McIntosh (Alabama) are “diabatic” concepts, where co-firing of natural gas is needed in order to compensate for the lost compression heat. Adiabatic CAES, on the other hand, uses a thermal energy store that recovers the heat of the compressed air during the charge of the air reservoir (typically an underground cavern). During the discharging phase, the compressed air exiting the reservoir is reheated in the thermal energy store, and is then expanded through an air turbine to produce power.

Adiabatic CAES offers significant improvements in cycle efficiency compared to the diabatic concept, and as no fuel is used, it generates no carbon dioxide. There are planned projects to implement adiabatic CAES, but so far nothing has been built as some challenges remain: how to design a cost-effective compression train and turbine train that meet the required fast ramp rates and good part-load performance? How to build a large thermal energy store with very limited heat losses over daily cycles and that operates at high pressures and temperatures?

Together with our colleagues of the GE businesses and with Germany’s largest utility RWE, we investigate at GE Global Research the pathway to make adiabatic CAES plants become a reality. Any question around CAES at GE ? Feel free to submit a comment on my blog.

March 21st, 2008 | Energy, Global Research, Sustainable Energy

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Comments

I am interested in receiving an updaye on your commercialization

Claude Mindorff | 3/24/08, 1:05 PM

How far is the air reservoir from the wind turbine?

John E. | 3/28/08, 11:24 AM

It’s clear that compressed air might be used to drive a turbine, one can see that in the high speed drills at some dentists’ offices. My question is whether there might be some interest in using compressed air produced by wind power, (whether before or after it might be used in conjunction with a turbine) to power some future generation of a “pneumatic transport system” with pipe diameters of a meter and a half or more. You might note that early American “Rocket Scientist” Robert Goddard (1882-1945) was awarded (postumously in 1950)a US Patent for a pneumatic tube system with a diameter of more than 3 meters (#2,511,979).

henry e nass | 5/09/08, 4:49 PM

GRC,

I have been searching for days within GE’s web site for exactly this “compressed air driven generator” for our compressed air storage project. Could you please email me your telephone number. I need to talk to GE about such a generator, which I assume will be turbine driven.

I need specs on output in KWH for such a generator. We can flow 50 million cubic feet of compressed air per day through a 10″ orfice with a beginning pressure of 1600 psi, and an ending pressure of 500 psi.

Thank you,

Ed Anderson

Ed Anderson | 6/05/08, 9:43 AM

Has anyone heard of direct wind turbine air compressors? It seems to me if take electricity out of the mix you can use the compressed air to power a MIDI air car, a air conditioner compressor and a electric generator. The compressed air can be stored indefinitely. I have scuba tanks that have held pressure for years. If there is a ’spill’ there would be no need to call the EPA, it’s just air. Correct me if I am wrong, every time you go from mechanical to electric it is very inefficient.

There you go.

Bill | 8/25/08, 4:23 PM

Interested in working in this type of enterprise. Have Ideas and working on them. Live near Spokane Washington.
contact me by e-mail if you need someone to make all this actually work.

steven Larsen | 10/21/08, 10:23 AM

If air compressed by wind power is used to replace the compressor in a gas turbine- generator combination the power output of the turbine would be a multiple of that for the original gt-gen set.

Bob | 10/27/08, 4:41 PM

Hi,
There is a new technology in wind power thru CAES, developed by Dr. Madhu Patel, that GE and RWE should really take a look at it.
It address the issues you have mentioned in this blog.
Also, increases the PLF upto 50%, a phenomenal acheivement, not currently achieved by conventional wind power technology.

If they are interested, dr. Patel can be contacted through me.

Thank You
Hina

Hina McKinney | 11/21/08, 4:12 AM

Good days , I wish.

TedaPronnador | 2/07/09, 3:09 AM

I have an idea of generating electricity by compressed air. A comressor run by electric motor from an external power will compress or push air into turbine generator. Compressor and generator are inside circular – tubular container that the air goes arround the container and when the generator starts producing electricity the electric motor of the compressor will switch it’s source of electricity from external source to get electricty from the generator.

ephraim a. africa | 6/03/09, 2:08 AM

What is the current status of the adiabatic CAES system that GE is developing? Is there any performance or cost information available? Any information that you could provide would be greatly appreciated.

Kyle Gerking | 6/15/09, 9:56 AM

Hi,
When do you think Adiabatic CAES is going to be commercially attractive and at what scale of power magnitudes
THX
Herbert

Herbie | 9/17/09, 10:51 AM

Dear Sir:

I am a PhD student of System and Industrial Engineering in University of Arizona. Currently, we are working on a researching project on the evaluation of electricity storage systems grid-tied to the renewable energy systems, especially the solar energy generation system with PV panels. Based on our previous research, we are very interested in using Compressed Air Energy Storage (CAES), as well as some new technologies in building up the storage system. Since GE is providing CAES systems, would you please give us some help on evaluating the performance of a storage system with this technology? Our simulation model will be built on the specifications of your product. Thank you in advance.

Our research is in the scenario of building up an energy storage system with the capacity of 1.5MW-3MW in terms of power, and 500kWh in terms of energy. By constructing such a system with your product, we are collecting the following information as the specification of the storage system. Please give us some data from your professional experience.

1. What are the requirements in the geology locations of the system?

2. We are more interested in building an aboveground storage system. What are the technical issues we should pay attention to in the aboveground storage case?

3. How many hours do you need for the whole compression/generation process?

4. What kind of fuel do you use for the air compression and electricity regeneration?
5. Would you please explain what is the charging ratio that is denoted by input power/output power?

6. What is the system round trip efficiency?

7. What is the general response time of the system to the energy shortage in the grid?

8. Please give us some information on the cost of building such a system, including the capital cost and the operating cost. Would you please show the cost information in a little more detail?

Thanks very much for accepting this email. If you believe there are some other critical technical specifications for building CAES system, please inform us. We really appreciate your help on improve our research for future reliable implementation of storage systems with renewal energy systems. Thanks again for your time and help.

Jiayun Zhao | 10/23/09, 2:30 PM

Hi,
Is it possible to get an update or report on this research? I am doing a report on energy storage technologies and it would be very helpful.

Thanks,
Mike

Mike | 10/26/09, 9:19 PM

On a somewhat unlrelated subject, is any research available on a scaled-down system that might enable a small wind generator to provide air for the MDI Compressed Air Car??

J Freund | 12/04/09, 11:44 AM

I’ll be more than happy to help anyone who has questions concerning the use of Compressed Air, I’ve been an application engineer for a company dealing with compressed air-operated products.

– JP

Jay Patterson | 2/16/10, 12:01 AM

Sir,
I am studying Master’s in Power Engineering in Germany and i am doing my master thesis on energy storage with main focus on CAES.The AA-CAES which GE and RWE company are developing in Germany are using sliding pressure air turbine or air turbine in the new AA-CAES pilot plant, but my request to you is could you give me more information on air turbine like how it works, what are the specifications and also the costs for the AA-CAES plant to built and maintain. this is my last hope requesting you, i have asked so many people in regarding this topics, even RWE, but i didn’t get the reply i was expecting. so you can send me this information, i will grateful to you sir, and i can finish my master thesis.

Kalyan Reddy | 4/07/10, 2:24 PM

I work for a group of companies collectively called the Steel Pressure Vessel Group. Our group is a leading supplier of air receivers to the North American compressed air industry and we are interested to see what pressure vessel applications may be associated with the CAES technology. In addition to air receivers we produce a wide variety of highly-engineered pressure vessels including separators, filters, heat exchangers, etc. Visit wwww.steelpressurevesselgroup.com

Regards,

Bill Wenzel

Bill Wenzel | 6/01/10, 9:37 AM