Green, ethical, energy issues in the news

zeupater

Martyn1981 said:

I think it was CW who mentioned this company some time back. Well now they have built a demonstration plant in Sardinia, and are to build a 20MW/200MWh storage facility.

Energy Dome Introduces Its Carbon Dioxide Energy Storage System On Sardinia

That plant has confirmed the performance of the CO2 Battery and its ability to store energy for a long duration with highly competitive round trip efficiency without degradation. The Sardinia demonstration project has proven this innovative process using off-the-shelf equipment available from a globally established supply chain, demonstrating that the rapid global deployment of the CO2 Battery is now possible with no bottlenecks.

The Energy Dome CO2 Battery

The Energy Dome battery is a closed system that uses excess renewable energy to compress carbon dioxide until it is condensed into a liquid. The heat from this compression is captured and stored to be used again later, according to Euronews. When it is time to discharge the energy, the stored heat that is used to evaporate the liquid carbon dioxide, which then turns back into a gas which spins a turbine as it returns to the dome. The system only requires steel, carbon dioxide, and some water. The closed loop system generates no emissions.

Hi

So a closed loop compress/expand system using CO2 (as opposed to CAES/LAES) with storage at ~70bar.

With CO2 being easily compressible in comparison to air the clear advantages would revolve around the amount of energy potential per cubic metre of storage (ED claim 66.7kWh/m3 at 70bar, so ~>10x that of air) and the lower conversion of mechanical energy into heat (before recovery) ... so can we infer anything from this?

... well, 200MWh of 70bar compressed storage would mean ~3000m3 at >1000psi with ambient storage being ~210,000m3 (70x3000), approximated to a 60x60x60m (200') cube ... just thinking what the NIMBY elements would have to say about something approx 1.5x the size of St Paul's cathedral being built next to the the proposed solar farm that they're already moaning about on the basis of loss of visual amenity ... I suppose (if their typical IQ is not measured in single digits!) they'd eventually compromise and accept that a field full of panels and an appropriate array of container sized lithium battery units, both hidden from view behind a typical hedgerow isn't that bad after-all ....

HTH - Z         

QrizB

zeupater said:

... well, 200MWh of 70bar compressed storage would mean ~3000m3 at >1000psi with ambient storage being ~210,000m3 (70x3000), approximated to a 60x60x60m (200') cube

Carbon dioxide liquifies at 70 bar, and (at STP) liquid CO2 is 200x as dense as the gas.

This might make your dome 3x the volume that you've calculated

zeupater

QrizB said:

zeupater said:

... well, 200MWh of 70bar compressed storage would mean ~3000m3 at >1000psi with ambient storage being ~210,000m3 (70x3000), approximated to a 60x60x60m (200') cube

Carbon dioxide liquifies at 70 bar, and (at STP) liquid CO2 is 200x as dense as the gas.

This might make your dome 3x the volume that you've calculated

Hi

I'd guess that compression cycle energy efficiency comes into play on Energy Dome (as per their corporate web site) selecting 70bar and comparing their solution to CAES and not LAES then ... staying away from mechanical cooling (to <18C) of compression heated gas at around the change of state pressures would result in higher round trip storage efficiencies ... effectively the same change of state/energy idea that it takes far more energy & time (both highly relevant to solution efficiencies) to convert tap water in a kettle into steam by raising the temperature from 100C to just >100C than it takes raising the same by ~90C the from tap ambient to boiling point, even though the temperature difference is comparatively negligible. 

HTH - Z

Martyn1981

zeupater said:

Martyn1981 said:

I think it was CW who mentioned this company some time back. Well now they have built a demonstration plant in Sardinia, and are to build a 20MW/200MWh storage facility.

Energy Dome Introduces Its Carbon Dioxide Energy Storage System On Sardinia

That plant has confirmed the performance of the CO2 Battery and its ability to store energy for a long duration with highly competitive round trip efficiency without degradation. The Sardinia demonstration project has proven this innovative process using off-the-shelf equipment available from a globally established supply chain, demonstrating that the rapid global deployment of the CO2 Battery is now possible with no bottlenecks.

The Energy Dome CO2 Battery

The Energy Dome battery is a closed system that uses excess renewable energy to compress carbon dioxide until it is condensed into a liquid. The heat from this compression is captured and stored to be used again later, according to Euronews. When it is time to discharge the energy, the stored heat that is used to evaporate the liquid carbon dioxide, which then turns back into a gas which spins a turbine as it returns to the dome. The system only requires steel, carbon dioxide, and some water. The closed loop system generates no emissions.

Hi

So a closed loop compress/expand system using CO2 (as opposed to CAES/LAES) with storage at ~70bar.

With CO2 being easily compressible in comparison to air the clear advantages would revolve around the amount of energy potential per cubic metre of storage (ED claim 66.7kWh/m3 at 70bar, so ~>10x that of air) and the lower conversion of mechanical energy into heat (before recovery) ... so can we infer anything from this?

... well, 200MWh of 70bar compressed storage would mean ~3000m3 at >1000psi with ambient storage being ~210,000m3 (70x3000), approximated to a 60x60x60m (200') cube ... just thinking what the NIMBY elements would have to say about something approx 1.5x the size of St Paul's cathedral being built next to the the proposed solar farm that they're already moaning about on the basis of loss of visual amenity ... I suppose (if their typical IQ is not measured in single digits!) they'd eventually compromise and accept that a field full of panels and an appropriate array of container sized lithium battery units, both hidden from view behind a typical hedgerow isn't that bad after-all ....

HTH - Z         

Cover the dome in flexible solar?

Or ..... and just thinking out loud, because I love the image you've put in my head, disguise the domes to look like famous structures - St Paul's, Buckingham Palace, Wembley Stadium - then open the largest crazy golf course in the World ....... "NURSE, I think my meds are wearing off!"

Martyn1981

Silly Sunday thought. Just looked at Energy Numbers and noted that the UK is importing 2.8GW from Belgium, Netherlands and Norway, and exporting 2.8GW to France.

I wonder if this is just a coincidence, or great use of interconnectors to move leccy around?

Imagine when we reach 15GW+ of interconnectors, hope any excess wind gen can get to them.

QrizB

Martyn1981 said:

Silly Sunday thought. Just looked at Energy Numbers ....

The bar chart is quite something, isn't it. (Yes I know it's a sunny Sunday afternoon in June, but even so.)

paul991

earlier we were exporting 18 percent to Europe but it looks as now more renewables coming on line we are importing about 8  percent and  reduce our  gas  generation
Its hard to  understand how  the market works with  long and short term contracts and also vested interests of the supply companies

Martyn1981

paul991 said:

earlier we were exporting 18 percent to Europe but it looks as now more renewables coming on line we are importing about 8  percent and  reduce our  gas  generation
Its hard to  understand how  the market works with  long and short term contracts and also vested interests of the supply companies

Yeah, fun and games. Now we are importing 1.3GW, but exporting 2.9GW to France. Are they still having trouble with their nukes, or are we just making cheap leccy today?



Edit - Update. France could face problems for a few years fixing the faults found.

French regulator gives update on corrosion issue

Around 35 welds have been checked so far and 105 will have been looked at by the end of June. Reuters reported that during his lengthy appearance before law makers Doroszczuk said the issue would require a "large-scale" plan and could take "several years".

QrizB

Martyn1981 said:

Yeah, fun and games. Now we are importing 1.3GW, but exporting 2.9GW to France. Are they still having trouble with their nukes, or are we just making cheap leccy today?

I haven't checked the status of the French sites but June/July is a popular time for maintenance outages on nuclear plants since the electricity is usually less in demand.

ElectricityMap shows that France only has 26.8GW of nuclear power online at the moment, from a nominal 61MW, with France importing from Belgium, Germany and GB:

https://app.electricitymap.org/zone/FR?utm_source=electricitymap.org&utm_medium=website&utm_campaign=banner

EDF UK by comparison has one reactor offline but the other 11 (6 sites, 2 per site) are all running full-bore.

Coastalwatch

This is quite some pumped storage project in the planning here and considered to be one of the largest in the world potentially, generating/storing some 5TWh of energy annually. Reckon it will take a few hundred wind turbines and acres of solar for sufficient excess to keep the pumps running during the charging operations. Kept lines to a minimum as it states protected by copyright.

So publish and be damned maybe.

Edit, annually, added!

Pumped-hydro storage project takes shape in New Zealand

https://www.pv-magazine.com/2022/06/14/pumped-hydro-storage-project-takes-shape-in-new-zealand/