Abstract
Advanced exergy-based analyses provide the information for potential of improvement of energy- conversion systems from exergetic, economic and environmental point of view. These analyses are applied to Cryogenic-based Energy Storage (CES) also known as Liquid Air Energy Storage (LAES). Advantages such as (a) lack of geographical restrictions, (b) low environmental impact and the fact that it is (c) based on mature technology, drive further the research on this energy storage system. An adiabatic LAES system charged with Heylandt liquefaction of air process is analysed. Parameters such as exergy destruction, investment cost, cost associated with the exergy destruction, as well as the environmental impact associated with the thermodynamic irreversibilities are split into avoidable/unavoidable and endogenous/exogenous parts. Aspen Plus® software was used to simulate the LAES system and Engineering Equation Solver was used to conduct the conventional and advanced exergy-based analyses. The dependence of the improvement of each component with the rest of the system was found and all components present higher exogenous exergy destruction than endogenous. The component with the highest potential for improvement is the main heat exchanger in the discharge unit. Focusing on improvement of the components that were found to be the most inefficient ones with the highest exergy destruction, CES is expected to become thermodynamically and economically feasible.
Highlights
In the past years, especially since the Paris Agreement at the 21st Conference of the Parties of the UNFCC, 195 countries have signed the agreement to keep the increase in global average temperature below 2 °C according to the pre-industrial levels and to limit the increase to 1.5 °C.The rapid increase of renewables technologies such as wind and solar power integrated to the power grid is promoted by many countries
Parameters such as exergy destruction, investment cost, cost associated with the exergy destruction, as well as the environmental impact associated with the thermodynamic irreversibilities are split into avoidable/unavoidable and endogenous/exogenous parts
This paper introduces advanced exergy-based methods split into avoidable/unavoidable and endogenous/exogenous to identify the limit to thermodynamic and cost improvements, and to calculate the independency of the components with each other
Summary
The rapid increase of renewables technologies such as wind and solar power integrated to the power grid is promoted by many countries. Increasing interest in energy storage systems that do not endanger the power network stability while introducing fluctuating renewable energies to the grid are of great importance and are being rapidly developed. This paper discusses a feasible solution: Cryogenicbased Energy Storage, currently at precommercial state and still under development with a Technology Readiness Level of 8 (TRL=9 is the maximum) [5]. Contrary as the two most common and commercial large-scale energy storage technologies; Pumped Hydro Systems (PHS) and Compressed Air Energy Storage systems (CAES), CES does not present any geographical limitations and can be constructed much faster [2,3]. Efficiencies reported until now are promising for LAES, but the criteria where CES outstands the most is the considerably higher energy density than PHS and CAES
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