Engineering construction energy storage plant operation

Where is China's compressed air energy storage plant?

Aerial view of another compressed air energy storage plant in China, which was connected to the grid last month. Image: China Huaneng. Construction has started on a 350MW/1.4GWh compressed air energy storage (CAES) unit in Shangdong, China.

What is a compressed air energy storage project?

A compressed air energy storage (CAES) project in Hubei, China, has come online, with 300MW/1,500MWh of capacity. The 5-hour duration project, called Hubei Yingchang, was built in two years with a total investment of CNY1.95 billion (US$270 million) and uses abandoned salt mines in the Yingcheng area of Hubei, China’s sixth-most populous province.

How does a geological storage facility use electrical energy?

This process uses electrical energy to compress air and store it under high pressure in underground geological storage facilities. This compressed air can be released on demand to produce electrical energy via a turbine and generator.

When was the first underground CAES power plant built?

The world’s first underground CAES power plant was constructed in Huntorf (Germany) in the middle of the 1970s and was primarily aimed at storing the electrical energy produced by less flexible coal and nuclear power plants during low periods of demand, and to feed this energy back into the grid again during periods of high demand.

How is energy stored in compressed air?

In Germany, a patent for the storage of electrical energy via compressed air was issued in 1956 whereby “energy is used for the isothermal compression of air; the compressed air is stored and transmitted long distances to generate mechanical energy at remote locations by converting heat energy into mechanical energy” .

When was a CAES power plant built?

Construction of a CAES power plant began in the Donbas region—650 km southwest of Volgograd—shortly before the collapse of the Soviet Union. The plant was scheduled to have an output of 1050 MW and was to use salt caverns to store compressed air. The work was abandoned with the collapse of the Soviet Union , . 4.7.16.