Steady State Analyse of existing Compressed Air Energy Storage Plants

Abstract

As compressed air energy storage (CAES) is a promising energy storage technology that has already proven its reliability in commercial operation some basic thermodynamic information on this process are elaborated in this paper. It shows a comparison of the thermodynamic process cycles of the CAES plants in Huntorf and McIntosh that has been modeled in EES (Engineering Equation Solver). Detailed T-s-Diagrams are given to show the differences of reversible and irreversible thermodynamic modeling of CAES. It is demonstrated that irreversibility assumption leads to an over estimation of the plant efficiency and therefore newer CAES concepts (like adiabatic CAES) should not be approximated with reversibility assumptions to avoid misleading statements.