Compressed Air Energy Storage
www.CompressedAirEnergyStorage.com
"The"
Website for
Compressed Air Energy Storage
Products, Services, News and Information
www.CompressedAirEnergyStorage.com COMPRESSED
AIR ENERGY STORAGE
www.CompressedAirEnergyStorage.com
Information, News, Products and Resources
We provide finance and investment consulting services for Compressed Air
Energy Storage ("CAES") that are a part of a renewable energy
power plant.
CAES provides a number of economic and environmental
benefits over traditional power generation technologies. Unlike most companies, we are equipment supplier/vendor neutral. This means we help our clients select the best equipment for their specific application. This approach provides our customers with superior performance, decreased operating expenses and increased return on investment.
Our
company also provides Demand Side Management design and project
development solutions that may provide a return on investment in less than
12 months. We also offer energy-saving technologies that may
include; Absorption Chillers, Adsorption
Chillers, Automated Demand
Response, Cogeneration, Demand
Response Programs, Demand Side
Management, Energy Master
Planning, Engine Driven Chillers,
Trigeneration and Energy
Conservation Measures.
Our company provides turn-key project solutions that include all or part of the following:
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Engineering and Economic Feasibility Studies
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Project Design, Engineering & Permitting
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Project Construction
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Project Capital
and Investment Funding
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Financing Options
(including long-term capital leasing and attractive programs for
municipal/governmental entities.
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Shared/Guaranteed Savings program with no capital
requirements (qualified clients)
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Project Commissioning
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Operations & Maintenance
For more information: call us at: 832-758-0027
What is
Compressed Air Energy Storage?
On nights and weekends, Compressed Air Energy Storage ("CAES")
systems compresses air on the surface and then pumps the air underground
to a cavern or former mine. There, it is stored as an energy source. During the day and at peak times, air is released and heated using a small amount of natural gas. The heated air flows through a turbine generator to produce electricity. In conventional gas-turbine power generation, the air that drives the turbine is compressed and heated using natural gas. On the other hand, compressed air energy storage technology needs less gas to produce power during periods of peak demand because it uses air that has already been compressed and stored underground.
Two major compressed air energy storage plants exist worldwide: a CAES
plant in Alabama, which is 11-years-old and rated at 110 megawatts, and a German facility that is 23-years-old and 290 MW.
A new CAES plant is under development located near Cleveland and will be capable of generating 2,700 MW.
Currently, manufacturers can create CAES machinery for facilities ranging from 5 to 350 MW.
Palo Alto, Calif.-based EPRI has estimated that more than 85 percent of the U.S. has geological characteristics will accommodate underground compressed air energy storage.
Studies have concluded that the technology is competitive with combustion turbines and combined-cycle units, even without attributing some of the uncommon benefits of energy storage.
Compressed air energy storage utilities can use off-peak electricity to compress air and store it in airtight underground caverns.
When the air is released from the underground mine or cavern, the air expands through a combustion turbine to create electricity. Nearly two-thirds of the natural gas in a conventional power plant is consumed by a typical natural gas turbine because the gas is used to drive the machine's compressor.
By comparison, a compressed-air storage plant uses low-cost heated compressed air to power the turbines and create off-peak electricity, conserving some natural gas.
Compressed air energy storage has a few disadvantages. The disadvantage is that energy is lost when it is “pumped” into the cavern and then re-extracted as compressed air.
Some estimates say that it could be as high as 80 percent. That, in effect, means that the selling price must accommodate that shortcoming, which may drive up rates for consumers.
Also, building underground storage can be expensive, which might make some prospective projects infeasible.
But, with gas prices estimated to be in the $5-6 per million BTU range in
the short to medium term, an investment in underground storage could pay for itself over time.
Moreover, if the nation develops an energy policy that pushes renewable power sources, the idea may catch on.
If that happens and a debate over the technology ensues, developers say that they can win approval from stakeholders.
Because storage is used with renewable forms of power, capital costs can be more readily recouped.
And furthermore, wind and solar energy, for example, can be stored whenever it is generated and then released on demand—helping to negate the argument that those power sources are intermittent and therefore unreliable.
It's a cost effective solution, developers add, because it would replace expensive “peaking” units that provide power during the hottest summer days or the coldest winter nights.
Air is stored in the form of compressed air energy during off peak hours and then released during the periods of highest demand, which will also lower the prices that consumers pay for power.
At the same time, compressed air energy storage units can reduce the stress on base load plants that would otherwise have to ramp up and down.
The Iowa Association of Municipal Utilities, for example, is considering a 300-megawatt plant that is comprised of a 100 MW wind farm and a 200-MW compressed air energy storage facility.
The association has spent $1.5 million studying the concept, which will likely come to fruition and be announced in mid year, it says. The plant would store energy in the form of compressed air and it would be withdrawn when it is needed.
“In the long run, this is cheaper than building a coal or natural gas plant,” says Bob Haug,
Executive Director of the Iowa Association of Municipal Utilities, because the possible facility would use two-thirds less natural gas than it would otherwise as well as the fact that the incremental cost to produce wind energy is negligible. By extension, compressed air energy storage plants would minimize the release of harmful emissions created by fossil fuel-fired generators.
Compressed air energy storage is unfamiliar to many. But the concept has been around for 20 years, albeit its usage is limited.
Still, the compression, storage and electric generation apparatus is made up of the same equipment that is used in gas storage and power plants.
With the emergence of other possible CAES facilities, and the impending decision by the Iowa Association of Municipal Utilities, the idea is sure to get a much closer examination.
"I think that it is important for all states to look at their alternative energy generation resources and ways of storing energy," says John Turner, a researcher at National Renewable Energy Laboratory.
"Compressed air energy storage is definitely one."
Please
contact us for more
information, please call us at 832-758-0027.
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