Highview Power unveils giga-scale cryogenic battery
28 June 2019
Highview Power has developed a modular cryogenic energy storage system—the CRYOBattery—that is scalable up to multiple gigawatts of energy storage and can be located anywhere. This technology reaches a new benchmark for a levelized cost of storage (LCOS) of $140/MWh for a 10-hour, 200 MW/2 GWh system.
Highview Power says that its cryogenic energy storage system is equivalent in performance to, and could potentially replace, a fossil fuel power station.
Highview Power’s systems can enable renewable energy baseload power at large scale, while also supporting electricity and distribution systems and providing energy security.
Highview Power’s proprietary cryogenic energy storage technology uses liquid air as the storage medium. Air turns to liquid when cooled down to -196 °C (-320 ˚F), and can then be stored very efficiently in insulated, low-pressure vessels. Exposure to ambient temperatures causes rapid re-gasification and a 700-fold expansion in volume, which is then used to drive a turbine and create electricity without combustion.
Unlike competing long-duration technologies, such as pumped hydro-power or compressed air, Highview Power’s CRYOBattery can be sited just about anywhere. The CRYOBattery has a small footprint, even at multiple gigawatt-levels, and does not use hazardous materials.
Other locatable, long-duration energy storage technologies—such as Lithium-ion—typically offer a range of 4-8 hours of storage, whereas Highview Power’s CRYOBattery offers multiple gigawatt hours of storage, representing weeks’ worth of storage, not just hours or days.
Over the last 15 years, Highview Power—through the design, construction, and operation of its CRYOBattery technology—has developed and optimized its own proprietary BLU core controller system. The system embodies the sum of Highview Power’s market-leading knowledge and expertise into a complete facility management system. The BLU controller seamlessly integrates the control of all CRYOBattery components to provide optimal facility performance—managing the balance between flexibility, efficiency, and response.
The BLU controller enables a system to be configured to a particular application through the selection of individual operational modes. It also provides operation and performance monitoring feedback, ensuring a facility’s optimal efficiency. The system’s embedded flexibility further ensures that the controller has the built-in capacity to adapt as a facility’s demand varies with market development.
Highview Power has partnered with Finland-based Citec to modularize its gigawatt-scale cryogenic energy storage system. With a simplified design and streamlined engineering from Citec, a standard CRYOBattery configuration of 50 MW/500 MWh can be easily, and cost-effectively, scaled up to multiple gigawatt hours.
Highview Power recently won the 2019 Ashden Award for Energy Innovation with its proprietary CRYOBattery technology.
The are giving the round trip efficiency as 60-75% here:
https://www.highviewpower.com/technology/
Posted by: Davemart | 28 June 2019 at 05:05 AM
So "batteries cheap as dirt" Sadoway is now being challenged by "batteries free as air" Highview Power.
I'm going to have to dig into this a bit (like, how do they get 70% efficiency?), but at first blush it looks like there are no show-stoppers.
Posted by: Engineer-Poet | 28 June 2019 at 06:36 AM
Okay, scan complete.
Highview Power appears to achieve their high efficiency by being very clever with the thermodynamics. Rather than discarding heat of compression and replacing it with ambient heat, they use heat and cold stores to capture heat/cold and re-use it. They seem to have insulated columns full of heat-storage material through which air is blown between compression/expansion stages. Depending on the pressure drops and differences between input and recovery temperatures, this could be quite efficient.
I'd like to compare this to the sand-heap energy storage scheme I saw a while back. That one used two large piles of sand as heat/cold stores with a compression/expansion engine moving heat between them. If the efficiency was comparable, it would probably be cheaper than storing liquid air.
Posted by: Engineer-Poet | 28 June 2019 at 07:40 AM
Clean e-energy storage units have a great future in the 24/7 REs era and to ensure 24/7 lower cost clean energy for future generations without current CPPs, NGPPs and NPPs.
A mix of many methods many be tried and/or required. V2G smart systems may be part of it, to better match energy production and usage.
Posted by: HarveyD | 28 June 2019 at 08:43 AM
AlzHarvey, can you ever respond on-topic instead of spouting random Greenie platitudes?
Posted by: Engineer-Poet | 28 June 2019 at 09:55 AM
While Highview Power promotes the CRYObattery to "enable renewable energy baseload power at large scale". It would also work well with NPP (particularly the smaller modular units I prefer - by expanding their power and efficiency).
Check out this reference here.
Posted by: Account Deleted | 28 June 2019 at 01:22 PM
A more detailed look at the reference above.
Posted by: Account Deleted | 28 June 2019 at 01:28 PM
gryf
I like that. It shows load shift within the economic capabilities Highview outline.
They don't claim it for very high volume, such as would be needed for seasonal storage for renewables, but it should be able to cope with daily or weekly load shifts.
Nuclear would fit that kind of power system well.
Posted by: Davemart | 28 June 2019 at 02:35 PM
There are a bunch of storage options for nuclear. Solar salt (heated by steam compression to increase the temperature beyond PWR output levels) will even do. However, that would require additional steam turbine capacity so it's more than just a bolt-on.
Posted by: Engineer-Poet | 28 June 2019 at 03:17 PM
As far as load-shifting storage for a NPP, I am curious to compare the capital and operational cost of energy storage vs just scaling up the NPP and load-following. In the latter case your NPP capital cost goes up and capacity factor goes down, of course, but you avoid the cost of storage. For intermittent renewables the need for backfill of capacity is mandatory, of course.
Posted by: Nick Lyons | 29 June 2019 at 08:22 AM
The fact that the Ludington PHS plant even exists indicates that storage is cheaper than running a bigger plant at reduced capacity factor.
Posted by: Engineer-Poet | 29 June 2019 at 10:37 AM
Usable Energy from NPPs is already overly costly. NPPs with storage would be even more so, unless NPPs are over designed and/or built to meet peak loads?
If and where storage is required, it would be much cheaper to start with easy/quick to build/install lower cost REs. The extra years and $$$$$$ required to design/construct and commission NPPs could be diverted to expand REs & storage.
NPPs should be limited to basic lowest continuous loads, normally around 20% of peak loads.
Hydro is another game because o/p can be quickly reduced while saving water for peak loads and/or while REs are producing less.
Posted by: HarveyD | 29 June 2019 at 01:50 PM
Funny, I thought you Greenies were willing to spend whatever it took to decarbonize energy and save the Earth from radical climate change. Your principles seem to take a back seat to anti-nuclearism, though.
NPPs with storage would eliminate the "can't ramp the nukes" problem. It would increase the value of their generation, by allowing more of it to be sold at peak demand periods.
Nukes need hours of storage (Ludington can generate for roughly 20 hours at full power). REs can take weeks-long vacations and have strong seasonal variations, so you'd need at least weeks if not months of storage.
You've been told this dozens of times but your tune never changes. Just like propaganda never changes. Are you senile or psyop, AlzHarvey?
Posted by: Engineer-Poet | 29 June 2019 at 06:44 PM
SAEP is still calling posters names but not sure what he is winning by doing so?
REs and H2 economy, with short-mid-long term mixed storage, are here to stay and expand at a fast rate, while Nuke is stalling and/or going down regardless of SAEP's diatribes and name calling.
Posted by: HarveyD | 30 June 2019 at 12:29 PM
Properly labelling you is not "calling names".
Putting foremost in everyone's mind exactly what you do here. Dispelling the Green smoke you blow.
Overnight storage is everything nuclear needs to "respond to load", but you insist on much larger and more expensive storage systems. Funny how that works.
If it wasn't for subsidies and mandates (that nuclear does not enjoy), neither would exist at all.
It's going down where people are superstitious enough to be Greens, where fossil fuels like gas and lignite are a political force. It is going up in the UAE, where fossil fuels are an export business and they can sell everything they don't burn. And it's really going up in China, where they ignore the superstitious and do what makes sense. China is building nuclear reactors to heat water to replace filthy smoking coal stoves for space heating.
Ontario suffered massive rate increases to subsidize "renewables". Ontario threw out the Greens and elected a government with a clue. All the CANDUs are on a schedule for rebuilding, making them literally better than new. Ohio will be the next state to put nuclear on par with "renewables" and keep its plants running. The UK just poured the first concrete on a brand-new plant. UAMPS is going to install the first of a new generation of nuclear.
We are just getting started here.
Posted by: Engineer-Poet | 30 June 2019 at 05:56 PM
SAEP forgot to look at energy stats. When he does, he will see that REs are going up fast and nuclear is going down (more units are being closed than new units are built).
The main reason are very different building times (10:1)and (5:1) cost.
Posted by: HarveyD | 30 June 2019 at 06:10 PM
AlzHarvey forgot to look at the most important stat: fossil fuel consumption. Nameplate wattage is more Green smoke; his "24/7 REs" are totally failing to displace the carbon being pulled from the ground. That is not just an important thing, it is the ONLY thing... and "renewables" are failing to do it.
Posted by: Engineer-Poet | 30 June 2019 at 09:39 PM
No SAEP... 24/7 RES are already replacing many older CPPs and NPPs. Please take time to look it up.
I have to admit that we have an ideal situation with Hydro + very large water reservoirs + Wind Turbines to produce ultra clean 24/7 REs at lower cost a reality. Our two older CANDUs will soon be completely demolished.
Ontario will have hugh overruns (time and $$$) with their CANDA refurbishing programmes and will do what they have to do to get huge Federal subsidies.
Posted by: HarveyD | 01 July 2019 at 02:01 PM
The only "24/7 RES" are hydro and hot-rock geothermal. There's no usable geothermal east of the Mississippi.
All other so-called "24/7 RES" are backed up by natural gas. They are not renewable in the least. When Vermont Yankee was forced to shut down by political interference, two things happened: regional gas consumption soared, and so did electric rates.
And if the population of Quebec rises to more than hydro can serve, Quebecois are going to regret their foolishness in doing so.
"The final fixed cost of the Bruce 6 refurbishment is CAD2.185 billion dollars (USD1.652 billion), the IESO said yesterday. An additional CAD554 million is being invested in one-time costs such as facilities, tooling and other infrastructure that will support the refurbishment of all six nuclear units. Since the refurbishment agreement's execution in December 2015, the price of electricity sold to the IESO has been lower than projected, saving about CAD150 million, while the price of power going forward is forecast to be about CAD3/MWh less than the initial estimate, the system operator said."
If you weren't being paid to post propaganda, you'd have gotten tired of being wrong by now.
Posted by: Engineer-Poet | 02 July 2019 at 11:26 AM
To set the facts straight on current and 2050 e-energy sources according to Bloomberg research:
Coal = 40% going down to 12% by 2050
Gas = 30% going down to 19% in 2050
REs = 20% going up to 62% by 2050 (including Hydro)
Nuke = 10% going down to 7 % bu 2050
An investment of at least $13.3T will be done between now and 2050, over 77% will go to REs.
Yes, Ontario's nuclear is over 200% more than clean Hydro/Wind from Quebec Hydro and may remain so for a very long time.
Refurbishing the 18-19 CANDUs will cost well over $100B and will have to be redone in 30 years.
Posted by: HarveyD | 03 July 2019 at 11:53 AM
Hard to believe this has a round trip efficiency of 60%. Creating liquid gas is very inefficient, although making cryoliquifiers in hypercompact form could be a real help. We have found that hydrogen gas is being introduced as a turbine coolant: It's properties of lubricity and heat exchange can't be beat, so maybe this is being used in compresssor and turbine systems for liquid gas.
More likely the increases of efficiency are in the banks of large and small turbine generators to handle variable electric loads. Even a very small intermittently used turbine could rival the efficiency (exergy) of the big boys. Apparently the key is to optimize the production of a ratio of liquid to gaseous cold air, and use both effectively in turbine generators, see https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/20/10/770/pdf
Now you're debating nuclear energy. Highview promotes its system as a means of reducing wear and tear on nuclear components during the rampup and rampdown of energy (experienced in France to produce load following). Now the plant can operate at continuous levels; Cold water from the sea or river plus heat from the cooling tower provide the heat/cold sinks for LAES, and you've positioned a facility from shutdown to repositioning for another 40 years. Wish this came in time for Oyster Creek!
Posted by: kalendjay | 03 July 2019 at 03:51 PM
AlzHarvey says this:
Authoritative source says this:
That's about CAD 40 billion for 19 of them. AlzHarvey is a Green propagandist, which is to say, a liar.
Meanwhile, the wind turbines will have worn out at about 20 years and already be halfway to their next replacement. And oh, wind turbines require ~5x the steel and concrete to get the same energy output as a nuclear plant... and last 1/3 or less as long.
"Renewables" are not energy technology. They are a religion.
Posted by: Engineer-Poet | 03 July 2019 at 06:20 PM
Let's no forget that a 1000 MWe CANDU, with an average production of about (80%) or about 800 MWe, would represent a net lost 800 (MWe) x 1000 (kWh) x 8640 (hours) x 4 (years) = 27,000,000,000 kWh @ 10 cents = $2.7B per CANDU down for refurbishing.
Add the $2,7B lost to the basic minimum $2.0 B for partial refurbishing and you get a basic partial refurbishing cost of $4.7B per CANDU or (19 x 4.7) = $89.3B (2016$) for the 19 units.
Since the time required to partially refurbish the 19 CANDUs will take up to 38 + years, the total costs, including 2% to 2.5% yearly increase in cost of living, will reach 110 to $120B.
Posted by: HarveyD | 04 July 2019 at 05:22 AM
Trying to weasel non-generation into a "cost of power" is a really weak argument, one which I notice that you don't try to count against your "24/7 REs" (which are generally neither, given their unreliability and all the non-renewable energy and material that goes into them).
But, propagandists got to try to be seen as credible. My advice is to retire from that job too.
Posted by: Engineer-Poet | 04 July 2019 at 09:31 AM
Why will 77% of new investments in e-energy production be for 24/7 REs with enough storage and a lot less in new nuclear?
The main reasons are that 24/7 REs cost a lot less per kWh produced, can be installed 10 times faster, can be distributed worldwide and can be upgraded and/or refurbished at will much faster at a much lower cost than NPPs.
Will much smaller, mass produced NPPs really compete with future 24/7 RES (with enough storage)? I hope so. At least for higher cost fixed minimum loads or 20% to 25% of the total loads.
SAEP will not like it but he will soon realise that he is loosing.
Posted by: HarveyD | 05 July 2019 at 07:47 AM