Engineering and Cost Study of an Offshore Wind Farm Compressed Air Energy Storage System

Abstract

This paper presents an engineering and cost study investigating a novel concept for combining a compressed air energy storage system with an offshore electrical substation serving a deep-water floating offshore wind farm. The study investigates a solution that combines existing offshore technologies with emerging compressed air energy storage (CAES) systems seeking synergies with wind farm energy production, higher efficiencies and lower levelized cost of storage. A cost analysis is presented including a worked model of an economic comparison between this offshore CAES system and electro-chemical (Li-Ion) battery storage. A variant of the Levelized Cost of Storage (LCOS) comparison metric is presented.