New Progress of Study in Energy Storage Area of Volcanic Rocks

Abstract

With the rapid development of national economy, combined with the construction of strategic reservation of petroleum in China, difficulty of large-scale energy storage and peak-shaving comes up. In recent years, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA), the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) and a number of energy companies launched two projects in the Columbia Basin to evaluate the technical and economic feasibility of underground gas and wind power storage in basalt interflow aquifers. These projects reveal the potential of volcanic rocks in the underground energy storage areas. This paper briefly describes the new progress of study in underground gas storage (UGS), compressed air energy storage (CAES) and underground thermal energy storage (UTES) of volcanic rocks. We point out that depleted volcanic oil and gas reservoirs could be another complementary type of UGS and CAES, and volcanic rocks types should be included extrusive rocks and pyroclastic rocks. At last, volcanic energy storage technologies used in some domestic related areas of enlightenment is summarized to provide theoretical basis for building green, efficient and low-consumption economy.