Re:Electricity stored as temperature difference
by lotsofmangos on Saturday November 22, 2014 @08:43AM
(#8645527)
The heat is certainly part of the energy storage in lightsail, if the heat generated by the compression wasn't being stored in water and then fed back in during expansion then that energy would be lost.
Is just that with lightsail it is a minor part of the storage, the majority being pressure. They are two very different solutions that approach two similar but differently structured thermodynamic problems, lightsail's system being high pressure/low temperature, and these folk doing a low pressure/high temperature store.
Light Sail's approach harvests the provided heat and cooling, but utilizes those for what is effectively a coordinated heating/cooling service. The heat itself isn't part of the energy storage/recovery process.
Both are interesting approaches to the heating/cooling problem.
If you don't allow for the heating and cooling, you run the risk of explosions or of excessive thermal loss from your compressed gas. Explosions are possible if you're storing large volumes of gas in underground former natural gas reservoirs -- injecting large volumes of high-temperature N2 + O2 atmospheric gas risks igniting the residual methane. You also have the problem of icing over your recovery apparatus. As a consequence many CAES (compressed air energy storage) designs incorporate a natural gas burner on the exhaust side which both heats the expanding gas and adds additional energy to the process. The resulting systems are a hybrid of natural gas generation plus energy storage.