Optimizing grid infrastructure with site-flexible, fuel-free compressed air energy storage

Abstract

The ever-growing overall demand for electricity combined with the increasingly variable supply of that key energy resource presents fundamental challenges to established processes for planning, building, and operating grid infrastructure. The issue extends beyond generation, as transmission planners struggle to site new lines in an environment of increasing political and societal opposition, while simultaneously meeting the challenge of managing unschedulable energy sources. Further, in certain areas with limited long-term demand growth it can be difficult to justify capital investment. Site-flexible energy storage offers a solution to both problems: transforming intermittent renewables into schedulable sources of clean energy, while cost-efficiently enhancing the utilization of existing transmission infrastructure.