Performance Analysis of a Coal-Fired External Combustion Compressed Air Energy Storage System

Abstract

Compressed air energy storage (CAES) is one of the large-scale energy storage technologies utilized to provide effective power peak load shaving. In this paper, a coal-fired external combustion CAES, which only uses coal as fuel, is proposed. Unlike the traditional CAES, the combustion chamber is substituted with an external combustion heater in which high-pressure air is heated before entering turbines to expand in the proposed system. A thermodynamic analysis of the proposed CAES is conducted on the basis of the process simulation. The overall efficiency and the efficiency of electricity storage are 48.37% and 81.50%, respectively. Furthermore, the exergy analysis is then derived and forecasted, and the exergy efficiency of the proposed system is 47.22%. The results show that the proposed CAES has more performance advantages than Huntorf CAES (the first CAES plant in the world). Techno-economic analysis of the coal-fired CAES shows that the cost of electricity (COE) is $106.33/MWh, which is relatively high in the rapidly developing power market. However, CAES will be more likely to be competitive if the power grid is improved and suitable geographical conditions for storage caverns are satisfied. This research provides a new approach for developing CAES in China.

Thermodynamic Analysis of a Hybrid Trigenerative Compressed Air Energy Storage System with Solar Thermal Energy

“…Although the COM and TUR subsystems are greatly similar to the A-CAES reported in many studies [ 10 , 11 , 12 , 13 , 14 , 15 ], the HT-CAES does possess several distinct characteristics. Firstly, compression heat energy is used to supply heating to users.…”

“…Recently, most of the literature related to A-CAES is focused on utility-scale applications [ 13 , 14 , 15 ], which are large-scale power plants located close to energy production. Nevertheless, a small-scale A-CAES (micro-CAES) may act as a trigenerative CAES (T-CAES) that is placed close to the user side and possess a tighter coupling between the DG and the energy demand, has received great attention in DES [ 16 , 17 ].…”

Strategies to save energy in the context of the energy crisis: a review

“…However, they suggest that compressed air energy storage may better suit day-ahead scheduling rather than real-time dispatch. Additionally, Liu et al ( 2014b ) proposed using coal-fired compressed air energy storage to address China’s energy needs, given the country’s abundance of coal but a scarcity of natural gas. Their techno-economic analysis suggests that using coal as a fuel rather than natural gas can increase the economic viability of conventional compressed air energy storage.…”

Technological Research of a Clean Energy Router Based on Advanced Adiabatic Compressed Air Energy Storage System

“…However, the heat exchanger operates under partial load when the mass flow of high-temperature air through the heat exchanger is considered in a practical application [ 21 , 22 ]. Meanwhile, most of the current models assume that the efficiency of the heat exchanger is constant without pressure loss.…”