WITHDRAWN: A Critical Review on Compressed Air Energy Storage in Underground Geological Media: Advances and Future Outlook

Abstract

Renewable energy sources such as wind, tidal, and solar power have emerged as the major clean energy sources globally to reduce or replace fossil fuel use to mitigate global climate change. Nevertheless, renewable sources exhibit sporadic and unstable characteristics, leading to significant challenges in grid integration and power fluctuations. Consequently, these difficulties might disrupt the overall stability of the grid. In instances of this nature, the significance of energy storage technologies becomes paramount, prompting researchers to redirect their focus towards identifying effective methods of energy storage that may optimize consumption to its fullest extent. Compressed air energy storage (CAES) is widely regarded as a vital technical solution for addressing the disparities between the generation of clean power and the corresponding demand for electricity because other storage technologies have high costs and limited feasibility in the context of renewable sources. This paper reviewed critically the CAES recent progress focused on developments of experimental works, modelling and simulations, and field applications of the CAES technology. It has been revealed that CAES in underground geological media (UGM) such as caverns and aquifers have great potential to store these energy sources and release them during high energy demand period. Despite the continuous research in CAES in UGM, particularly experiments, modelling and simulations, there are recently few new reported Adiabatic CAES in China and Canada full field applications apart from Huntorf and McIntosh. Further, it was found that super compressibility carbon dioxide (CO2) can be used as cushion gas during CAES because it increases the discharging pressure than charging pressure which led to production rate to increase four times than injection rate. Also, recommended policies in this paper may encourage the development and deployment of CAES technology as part of a sustainable and reliable energy system. Furthermore, identified challenges in this paper must be addressed and centred on enhancing CAES technology, monitoring systems, and materials to improve the technology's efficiency, cost-effectiveness, and environmental sustainability. The identified research gaps in this paper will pave the way for stake holders, academia, and researchers to conduct more research in CAES in underground geological media towards full field application on a global scale as a clean source of energy to combat global climatic change in future and supply energy during high demand period.