World’s largest compressed air energy storage facility goes online in China salt caverns

The world’s largest compressed air energy storage facility has reached full operation in underground salt caverns in the eastern Chinese province of Jiangsu.

The Guoxin Suyan Huai’an Salt Cavern Compressed Air Energy Storage Power Generation Project has an installed power output of 600 megawatts (MW) and a storage capacity of 2.4 gigawatt-hours (GWh), or four hours of energy storage duration.

The project, which comprises two 300 MW non-combustion compressed air energy storage units, works by compressing air and injecting it into the salt caverns during periods of low demand. The stored air is then released during peak demand to drive turbines and generate electricity.

According to Harbin Electric Corporation, which supplied the heat exchange equipment for the project, the facility uses molten salt and pressurised thermal water storage for heat management and has a conversion efficiency of 71 per cent.

China’s National Energy Administration announced last week that the two units had been successfully connected to the grid for the first time and simultaneously were able to achieve full-load power generation.

Full-time operation is expected to generate up to 792-gigawatt-hours (GW) of electricity each year, the equivalent of power for 600,000 households, and capable of reducing coal consumption by as much as 250,000 tonnes and carbon dioxide emissions by 600,000 tonnes per year.

The NEA says the project represents a new generation of grid “stabiliser,” acting as a buffer between generation and consumption while also improving the sustainability of the region’s electricity grid.

Globally, a range of compressed air energy storage (CAES) projects are under development in a number of countries, including China, the US, Canada and Europe.

In Australia, the 200 MW, up to eight hour (1600 MWh) duration Silver City Energy Storage project is being developed by Canadian compressed air technology company Hydrostor, as part of a world-first renewable energy mini-grid in Broken Hill, New South Wales.

Hydrostor already has a successful utility scale facility commercially contracted to the Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO) located in Goderich, Ontario, as well as a second project under late-stage development in Kern County, California.

If you would like to join more than 29,000 others and get the latest clean energy news delivered straight to your inbox, for free, please click here to subscribe to our free daily newsletter.