Compressed Air Energy Storage Systems with Submarine Air

Reservoir
Universit` a degli Studi di Trento
Dipartimento di Ingegneria Industriale
Anno Accademico 2012/2013
Student Professor
Davide Occello Ing. Lorenzo Battisti
Contents
1 Introduction 3
2 CAES Classication 10
2.1 Type of air reservoir . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
2.1.1 Constant Volume . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
2.1.2 Constant pressure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
2.2 Thermal permeability of the system . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
2.2.1 Diathermic CAES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
2.2.2 Adiathermic CAES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
2.3 Stationariness of Turbine Inlet Temperature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
2.3.1 Constant Temperature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
2.3.2 Variable Temperature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
I Hydrostatic problem 20
3 Hydrostatic Hypothesis 20
4 Full deformability of the air reservoir borders Hypothesis 20
4.1 Hydrostatic Pressure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
4.2 Buoyancy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
5 Geomorphological considerations 22
II Plant problem 23
6 Selection of the plant type 23
7 Building the model 24
7.1 Gas model choice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
7.2 Gas transformation model choice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
7.2.1 Politropic transformation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
7.2.2 Isothermal transformation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
7.2.3 Para-Isothermal transformation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
7.3 Continuous and localised pressure losses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
7.3.1 Piping pressure losses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
7.3.2 Local pressure losses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
7.3.3 Compression . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
8 Numerical Approach to the problem 32
8.1 Optimization function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
8.2 Constraints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
1
9 Equations on which the model is based 33
9.1 Elementary Compression Ratio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
9.2 Specic Work of the single phase . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
9.3 Eciency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
9.4 Power . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
9.5 Denition of heat exchange eciency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
9.6 Real Exchanged Heat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
9.7 Maximum Exchangeable Heat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
9.8 Temperatures of the uids . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
10 Results 40
10.1 Pre-Dimensioning of the Plant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
10.2 Dimensioning the Plant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
11 Conclusions 49
2
1 Introduction
The aim of this work is to build a thermodynamic model of a Compressed Air Energy Storage
system (hereinafter called CAES) with the compressed air reservoir placed in a submarine
high depth environment (400-600 m) to obtain constant pressure, and a Liquid Thermal En-
ergy Storage (Liquid TES) to recover the heat produced during compression in a stationary
way. The CAES system was selected because of its ability to provide a storage solution with
both high capacity and high power, for load levelling purposes in locations in which Pumped
Hydroelectric storage is not present or not feasible. Moreover the ancillary characteristics of
the system, as the submarine tank and the liquid TES, were selected in order to obtain the
maximum eciency possible, by cutting any massive energy loss and maximizing the eciency
of the used turbo-machinery and heat exchange devices.
In the next lines will be given an overall explanation of the reasons which driven the object
of this thesis.
Figure 1: Diagram of the studied system [1]
The problem of Energy Intermittency In the last few years there has been a great in-
crease in the clean energy demand and the scientic community tackled the subject proposing
new and long term sustainable energy sources and technologies to convert them. The common
characteristic of these solutions (excluding bio-fuels) is that they are unpredictable and that
their energy density is a lot lower than the fossil fuels. This problem is particularly true for
Wind Energy, because of the natural discontinuity of the source. [2] [3]
On the other hand their availability is widespread and free to access also in the future
centuries, and this pushes the research and the installed power of these technologies grows
3
rapidly all over the globe as we can see in the graphic below (Figure 2) .
The unpredictability of Renewable Energy Sources (RES) inuences greatly the competi-
tiveness and the economic feasibility of these technologies, risky in respect to the fossil energy
sources of which we can control the productivity. [4].
Figure 2: Globally Installed RES Power 2004 - 2011 [5]
Conventional Solutions Nowadays if there is a peak of energy demand the thermoelectric
power plants produce the extra energy through rapidly employable/deployable gas turbines,
which are low eciency and costly. The cost of this system is high if compared to other
possible solutions as the various technologies of energy storage. (gure 3), even more if the
duration of the peak is over 2 hours. [6]
Moreover if there was an overproduction the rst plants to be deployed would be the RES
ones, as they are the most easy to deploy, not depending on heat cycles that could damage
the plant. The idea to build Thermoelectric power plants to meet the growing energy demand
can work only for base-load energy demand, and not for the physiological uctuations of the
grid.[3][6]
4
Figure 3: An EPRI economical feasibility study [7]
Energy Storage The alternative solution to the problem is storing part of the energy when
there is low demand, and later recovering the stored energy when there is high demand. Now
there are many storage options, that tackle particular storing needs. They can be sorted in
three categories, based on the order of magnitude of the time period the energy needs to be
stored. These categories are:
Load Levelling : Half day long uctuations
Ramping : Hour long uctuations
Frequency Regulation : Minute long uctuations
In the gure 4 are showed the main storage systems that can deal with every single cate-
gory.
Middle to small scale storage The most used and studied technologies for middle
to small scale storage are batteries (middle scale) and ywheels (small scale). Flywheels are
extremely ecient and have an extremely rapid response, but are also costly so they are used
only for small scale. Recently other systems for small scale storage are being studied, such as
super-capacitors and SMES (Super Magnetic Energy Storage) that have also almost unitary
eciencies, but are even more costly right now.
5
Figure 4: Three types of uctuations on the grid
Figure 5: Energy storage systems comparison [8]
6
Large scale storage Currently the energy storage technologies that can face both high
power and long charge times are few as can be seen in gure 6.
Figure 6: Dierent types of energy storage [9]
These are:
Pumped Hydroelectric Storage or PHS
High Power Electrochemical Storage
Compressed Air Energy Storage or CAES
PHS The Pumped Hydroelectric Storage is actually one of the most used storage systems,
because of its really high eciency and power obtainable. Moreover the high capital cost of
the dam, is spread over the lifespan of 20 or more years, making it a feasible application.
(Figure 7). The storage is done pumping water in the high altitude water reservoir during
energy abundance. The energy is then extracted by draining the basin and passing the water
through a turbine. The main drawback of this technology is the fact that the localities in
which a dam can be placed are few, and some major historical facts happened in the past
years around dams act as an obstacle for future investments in PHS.
High Power Batteries and Fuel Cells Batteries and Fuel Cells are devices that convert
electrical to chemical energy. The eciencies of these systems are typically around 65-75 ,
and have a wide range of applications. The convenient fact about batteries is that they are
7
almost totally independent from geographical conditions, so can be placed in a large variety
of places. The drawbacks of these systems are the possible environmental hazards,the cost
and mostly the short lifespan. Lately EPRI analysed the economic feasibility of small scale
CAES systems that could be competitive with batteries. [10].
CAES CAES systems are based on the compression of air in natural or articial reservoirs
in order to stock energy for later usage. The overall characteristics of these systems are middle
to low cost per kWh of energy stored, a good eciency (50-80 ) and pretty fast response time
(15 min) and long storage times (gure 3 , gure 5 and gure 7) . The traditional systems
dissipate the exhaust heat obtained from compression in the atmosphere and later during
expansion they burn fuels to heat up the air and produce power. The CO
2
direct emissions
compared to traditional gas turbines of the same power are 1/3 , due to the pre-compression,
but still present [11]. Recently in order to obtain a higher eciency and zero CO
2
emissions,
an alternative approach was proposed. This heat would no more be released in the atmo-
sphere, but stored in a Thermal Energy Storage (hereinafter called TES) and used later to
heat up the exiting gas. The principal drawback of this technology (old and new ones) is the
constant volume air reservoir, made out of salt caverns solution mined in salt domes rarely
present outside Germany and USA. [12].
Figure 7: Investment and exercise costs of energy storage systems
Why Underwater Compressed Air Energy Storage? All over the world almost the
90 % of the electrical load in the industrialized world is located near water [13], and moreover
in Italy the majority of the installed wind power as can be seen in gure 8, is in the southern
of Italy, where is found the national highest average wind speed. Nowadays, there is no
economically feasible storage option to regulate the output power, or even store the energy
produced during the night. In fact the cost of wind energy is low compared to other renewable
8
sources as PV, and this fact makes the conventional storage options (with batteries) not
economically feasible, because of the high costs for high power and high capacity battery
systems (gure 3). On the other hand no PHS is possible due to the morphology of southern
Italy, and so the only candidate possible would be CAES if there was a way to store air in
structures available where the wind power is. In the last years new types of constant pressure
CAES plants with underwater air reservoirs have been proposed, and many patents have been
deposited on the subject ([14], [15], [16], [17], [18],...). In fact a very available resource in many
parts of southern Italy is the Mediterranean sea, in which the deep areas are close enough to
the coast to think of a possible utilization as high pressure environment.
Figure 8: Map of installed Wind power in Italy [19]
9
2 CAES Classication
The classication of the state-of-the-art technologies in this eld is a useful tool to see the
principal solutions for CAES energy storage and also to outline the main advantages and
drawbacks of each technology.
This section covers an overall classication of the dierent CAES technologies, analysing each
characteristic in depth and pointing out the dierences between them. The main criteria on
which the classication is done are three:
Type of air reservoir
Thermal permeability of the system
Steadiness of the Turbine Inlet Temperature (TIT)
A visual idea of the classication is showed in gure 9.
2.1 Type of air reservoir
There are two main types of reservoir used normally to stock air and these are:
Constant Volume reservoirs
Constant pressure reservoirs
Other gas storage systems could be imagined, such as constant temperature reservoirs or
also p-V-T variable tanks, but apart from being dicult to make, they arent also all that
useful for now.
2.1.1 Constant Volume
The constant volume CAES systems are characterized by the usage of xed border reservoirs
as conventional tanks or caverns. It is the most conventional and easy way to stock compressed
air, and so the most used. There are various types of reservoirs used for CAES applications,
such as:
Underground Reservoirs:
Salt caverns, solution mined in salt domes
Aquifers
Abandoned Oil wells
Aboveground Reservoirs:
Pressurized closed pipelines [10]
Conventional tanks
10
Figure 9: CAES Classication Criteria
Advantages This type of reservoir is actually the only one used in the industrial practice.
The reason of this fact resides in a few characteristics of the system:
Low cost per m
3
for big volumes [10]
High availability in northern Europe and USA [7].
Well known technology
This type of storage uses a well known know-how inspired by the Natural Gas storage for
market purposes, a much older market with years of testing.
11
Disadvantages Unfortunately the constant volume storage has numerous disadvantages
that have been brought up in these years of industrial practice at Huntorf (Germany) [20]
and McIntosh (USA) [21], such as:
Variable working points of turbomachinery
Constant volume imposes variable pressures in the tank and makes the machines work
in dierent points of their performance diagram, creating diculties to optimize the
machinery for the maximum eciency. In the practice of the McIntosh plant the problem
was solved using a particular valve that maintains constant the inlet and outlet pressure,
but that dissipates some energy, and costs a lot [21]. Other proposed solutions for
this problem were the usage of variable conguration compression/expansion trains or
compensating the variability of the pressure by changing the volume ow rate, in order
to maintain constant the working point of the turbomachinery.[22]
Stresses in the reservoir
Variable pressures create variable stress conditions in the cavern, that undergoes pulsat-
ing fatigue cycles, reducing its viable lifespan. These fatigue cycles have been brought
under control in the practice by reducing the amplitude of the cycle, and so reducing
the interval of variability of the pressure (under 20 bar) [12]. Other solutions to this
problem have been proposed, such as increasing greatly the storage volume in order to
reduce the pressure variability.
Inecient use of the storage volume As can be seen in gure 10, the ideal specic work
(if the transformation was perfectly isothermal) varies greatly with the pressure making
a part of the air volume contained in the reservoir unusable, because of the low energy
density associated to the low pressures when the storage is discharged. Even if the
reservoir was able to bear the stress cycles, the quality of the energy stored would go
down greatly.
Geographic localization (Only for underground storage)
As with Hydroelectric water reservoirs , these underground caverns need some typical
Geomorphological conditions that permit the storage. Even if in Germany and northern
Europe there is a relatively high number of usable sites [23], in Italy [12]the number is
really low. There is also no guarantee that the place where a reservoir possible, has the
necessary infrastructures or need for energy regulations and storage. In the past this
fact increased the capital cost for the plant, as reported here [24, p. 83] and here [21,
p. 19].
Air Vitiation (Only underground storage) [25]
During the permanence of the air in the caverns a part of the oxygen contained in
the air becomes adsorbed into the rock or salt reducing the molar fraction of oxygen
from 20,7 % to more or less 18 %.This fact is important to consider in the design of a
diabatic/traditional CAES system because it can aect combustion eciency.
12
Figure 10: Ideal specic work (energy density) extractable from a given pressure
2.1.2 Constant pressure
The constant pressure reservoirs have deformable borders that expand and compress in order
to balance the air pressure inside the control volume. This is eect can be obtained in various
ways that are to be exposed below:
PHS-CAES Coupling
This system uses the water column provided by the PHS in order to obtain hydro-
static pressure in the low hight water/air reservoir. In this case the lower reservoir has
to be airtight in order to maintain pressure. Unfortunately, not a lot of Hydroelectric
plants have at least 500 meters (equivalent to a 50 bar pressure, needed to have a good
energy density, ref gure 10) of head to dispose of, and if they have, normally a storage
system is already provided by the water basin. Obviously this system could be used to
increase the storage capacity of the plant if needed.
Underwater CAES
In this case the air storage site is submarine, positioned at a given depth in order
to make the water basin compensate the pressure in the high pressure reservoir. For
this type of storage two main kinds of tanks have been proposed, some are composite
13
material balloons with highly deformable structure in all three dimensions [18], others
are steel-made and have only one deformable border, as a cylinder-piston system [26].
As a drawback this system needs articial air reservoirs in order to work.
Closed air Systems
This type of CAES is inspired by the CAES-PHS Coupling but as a dierence here
the pressure is actively regulated in the water/air reservoir by a pump. In some cases
this pump absorbs up to the 15 % of the energy stored, in others, more complex systems
this is no more the case. [27]
Figure 11: Undersea Modular Concrete Compressed Air Energy Storage [26]
Advantages The constant pressure solutions have some advantages over the constant vol-
ume type, some of whom are listed below:
Stationary working machinery
This factor is the main advantage of the system. Constant pressure keeps the machin-
ery from working in dierent positions in their performance diagram, and so gives the
designer the freedom of to calibrate the machines perfectly for the given task, obtaining
the maximum eciency possible.
Power output only dependent from

V
Constant pressure permits to change the output power only changing the gas volume
ow rate

V , which is easily manoeuvrable, because all the other parameters are constant.
Better utilization of the given storage volume
Because of the constant energy density associated to a constant pressure, all the volume
in the tank has the same energetic content, at any stage of the storage cycle, permitting
the utilization of all the given volume, which is great news for a system that needs
articial reservoirs to work.
14
Disadvantages This type of storage solves many of the problems listed above for the con-
stant volume reservoir, but also creates some extra diculties to address such as:
Possible piping installation diculties
The conditions under which constant pressure storages are possible are often not so easy
to create or reach, so the installation could be dicult.
Possible plant complexities
The constant pressure conditions arent easily reachable, so the plant complexity could
be increased, as the underwater tanks could need either underwater piping or o shore
turbomachinery , and the other solutions may need pumps or PHS-CAES coupling.
Possibly increased corrosive environment (salt)
2.2 Thermal permeability of the system
The thermal permeability of the system inuences directly the overall eciency of the CAES,
contributing to limit or increase the internal losses.
We can distinguish two main permeability states:
Diathermic System
Diathermic means permeable to heat, so this is a system that is designed to exchange
heat with the environment during all the cycle.
Adiathermic System
Adiathermic on the other hand means not permeable to heat, in fact this type of
system is ideally designed to keep all the possible energy in the control volume, letting
escape only unavoidable losses.
2.2.1 Diathermic CAES
Diathermic types, are the only CAES systems that have a real plant working on the market
(Huntorf and McIntosh). The diabatic CAES produces during compression a notably big
quantity of heat that is extracted from the gas through heat exchanges and is released in
the atmosphere, this is done because it reduces the amount of work needed for compression,
reducing the costs. During expansion some fuel is burned in modied gas turbines (McIntosh)
[21] or modied steam turbines (Huntorf)[12] in order to increase the overall power and keep
the ice from forming in the turbine. These systems have demonstrated great reliability and
over 95/98 % availability in these years of non stop work [28]. Nevertheless the practice of
dispersing heat reduces the overall eciency of the plant, in these cases around 50 %, produces
CO
2
and NO
x
emissions and creates the dependence of the exercise cost on fossil fuels costs.
15
2.2.2 Adiathermic CAES
Recently some systems have been proposed that store the heat produced during compression
in TES systems and use it during expansion in order to increase the eciency of the plants
and to cut on polluting emissions. Theoretically, two approaches to the system can be pur-
sued, but also one that combines the two, these are:
Adiabatic approach
Isothermal approach
Combined approach
Adiabatic approach In the adiabatic approach, studied in a EU funded research, the ten-
dency is to obtain the unitary eciency through a perfectly adiabatic/isoentropic process.
So the ideal plant would be one single machine that compresses air isoentropically and after-
wards releases the produced (really high quality) thermal power into a TES. When the energy
is needed, the air is heated up by the TES and expanded in a single isoentropical turbine.
Sadly this approach has some technological limits, not for the eciency of the turbines, that
are almost adiabatic, but because of the temperature and pressure jump problems, a 50 bar
compression for a single machine are really dicult to bear, and produce a temperature jump
of 600-700 Celsius degrees also. These problems impose an inter-refrigerated compression in
order to reduce the mechanical and thermal stresses. [29]
Isothermal approach The ideal transformation for this approach is a perfectly isothermal
one. The idea is to keep the gas temperature xed during the compression and expansion
obtaining this way the unitary eciency. Nonetheless no machine fast enough to produce
reasonable amounts of power can do this, even if recently some companies have begun to
study reciprocating compressors with almost isothermal compression curves, but with also
less power and low eciency compared to conventional turbomachinery [1]. For high power
applications, as intended in this thesis, the alternative would be to approximate an isothermal
transformation with many inter-refrigerated compressions and inter-heated expansions . In
this case the tendency is to obtain the unitary eciency increasing the number of machines
(the opposite way of the last approach) because this makes the transformation more similar
to the isothermal one.
The advantages of this approach are that the maximum temperature the gas reaches isnt
too high, and this could permit the use of pressurized water as a cooling solution, which would
permit an open refrigerating cycle, versus a closed one. The advantage of this fact is that
given the prospected location if the plant (coastline or oating platform) and the presumable
amounts of water needed, the use of water could be much more economic. Moreover, lower
gas temperatures mean lower TES temperatures, and so less thermal losses.
16
The main drawback of this approach are the fact that in order to obtain = 1 the number
of machines needed would be innite, and so impossible. Moreover the marginal increase of
eciency while increasing the machines would progressively lower as we approach 1 [30]. The
costs of this practice impose a compromise as it was for the adiabatic approach.
Combined Approach Because of the fact that both the approaches ideally arent feasible,
a compromise approach must be pursued. In this case, both the approaches need para-
isothermal transformations as an approximation, and so a possible solution could be to nd the
perfect number of machines to obtain the best eciency possible, in realistic conditions, and
so also involving in the choice other plant parameters as the eciency of the heat exchangers
and the boundary conditions.
2.3 Stationariness of Turbine Inlet Temperature
The variability of the temperature of the TIT (Turbine Inlet Temperature) aects the station-
ariness of the ow as greatly as the pressure variability does, so in relation to this parameter
big dierences in CAES systems can come up.
Variable temperature at the border of elementary machines as turbines and compressors
is something that doesnt happen often in real applications as the technology on which CAES
turbines are based was designed for fuel applications, so temperature constancy is given by
controlling the fuel intake. However for ecological and economical reasons the use of fuels is
unwanted or has to be limited, so in these conditions, the only alternative is thermal storage
which can cause in some cases the variability of the temperature.
2.3.1 Constant Temperature
This condition of the system is obtained in two very dierent ways:
Fuel Burning
As the gas that is extracted from the reservoir enters the burner the temperature of the
gas is regulated by the amount of fuel burned, in order to maintain constant the turbine
inlet temperature.
Liquid TES
The liquid thermal energy storages are systems which store heat in a uid and the uid
in a tank. When needed the uid is then extracted bit by bit, and only the temperature
of the extracted uid is lowered, so that the temperature of the TES is maintained
constant. In this way every cycle of the system will have the same TES temperature
and so the same TIT (turbine inlet temperature).
17
Advantages The main reasons why this condition is wanted are:
Stationariness of the ows
The temperature of a gas ow inuences its volume ow rate, changing also the working
point of the machines. For this reason a steady ow is better.
Simpler model
The steadiness of the ow permits to simplify the numerical model, focussing of making
it more adherent from other points of view.
Disadvantages The disadvantages of constant pressure itself are none, in fact the draw-
backs are linked only to the way this condition is reached.
Each way to maintain the temperature constant has its problems, so I will divide the
disadvantages accordingly to the technology that has it.
Fuel Burning
Possible polluting emissions
If the TIT is maintained constant burning fuels, the system will produce at least CO
2
and NO
x
which are environmentally polluting compounds that in recent times have to
be limited.
Fuel Cost Dependence
The exercise costs of the plant will be dependent on the cost of the burned fuel. In last
years this cost reached unthinkable thresholds making less and less feasible a fuel based
storage also because the tendency of fuel cost is to grow even more.
Liquid TES
Costs
The costs of TES structures are high due to the cost of heat exchange devices and their
maintenance. This drawback is shared between all the TES systems, not only the liquid
type, even if this particular type may be more complex due to the doubling of the heat
exchange structures.
Limited Storage Temperatures
Due to the usage of a uid to exchange heat, the upper and lower extreme of the
temperature of the uid are respectively the boiling and the fusion temperatures, because
in each case, the uid ceases to be liquid. For this reason this storage type is dicult to
design, mainly because the uids that work at low temperature boil if heated too much,
and the ones that work at low temperature solidify if let cool down.
18
2.3.2 Variable Temperature
As said before, the variability of the temperature isnt often found, but the usage of Sensible
Heat Thermal Storages, makes is a possible horizon.
Advantages
Large Storage temperature range
The sensible heat TES devices, opposed to the liquid TES types, have a large range
of operating temperatures, because they normally use ceramic materials, like concrete,
SiO
2
sand, basalt, and so on. These materials have really high fusion temperatures, so
they can bear really wide ranges of working temperatures.
Less costly
Compared to the liquid TES type, the cost of sensible heat devices can be lower due to
the lower complexity of the piping structure and of the materials used.
Disadvantages
Modelling diculties
Because of the fact that in sensible heat devices the main body of the storage device
is also the heat exchanger, the eciency of the exchange and the gas exit temperature
vary with the temperature of the TES, making it quite dicult to model a system using
this technology, conventional tools.
Unsteadiness of the ow
19
Part I
Hydrostatic problem
In this part of the thesis a little analysis of the physical principles involving the mechanism
that maintains constant the pressure in a underwater CAES system will be done briey. Some
approximations of reality, will be introduced and motivated.
3 Hydrostatic Hypothesis
The high pressure reservoir of the system is located on the bottom of the sea, at a high depth.
I make here a simplifying hypothesis, in order to reduce the complexity of the given problem.
Hereafter Ill consider constant the pressure at the border of our control volume. This means
that the possible changes in the level of the sea due to tides, waves, and the dynamic eects
of deep sea currents are to be considered negligible. This hypothesis is valid if we consider a
site with low speed currents and at high depth, in order to make little the tidal and waves
contribution to pressure. Moreover, the system will be almost surely placed close to the sea
bed, where adherence conditions impose low speed currents if present. The possible dierences
between the pressure between the top and the bottom of the reservoir border, are negligible
and will be hereafter ignored.
4 Full deformability of the air reservoir borders Hypothesis
Hereafter the tank borders will be considered fully deformable, this means that no load can be
sustained by it. This assumption can be considered valid in static conditions for free moving
piston-cylinder air vessels, and for highly deformable air balloons made of some polymer type
material.
4.1 Hydrostatic Pressure
In hydrostatic conditions the pressure varies linearly with the depth of the site. The formula
for the pressure in these conditions is:
P = gz
where:
is the uid density
g is the earths gravitational constant
z is the depth in meters (m)
This means that an air volume with deformable borders, placed at a certain depth is sub-
jected to a given pressure that doesnt change in time. Given the constant pressure outside
20
the control volume, because of the full deformability of the tank, no load can be sustained,
and so the pressure inside the tank will be equal to the one outside.
Given the equality of internal and external pressure, the material of the air reservoir will
not be strained by any type of tensile stress caused by the pressure, the only component of
a possible tensile stress, comes from the buoyancy of the air volume and must be considered
while dimensioning the tank and the anchoring system.
4.2 Buoyancy
The force that the sunk air bubble feels and transfers to the air reservoir is given by the
following formula:
F =
f
gV
Where:
is the density of the uid
g is the earths gravitational constant
V is the volume of the air bubble
Figure 12: Bathymetric map of Italian seas
21
5 Geomorphological considerations
Study of the depth of the Italian seas The seas surrounding Italy are particular as can
be seen in the bathymetric chart (gure 12). The western part of the Mediterranean sea is
particularly deep close enough to the coast, in the range of 10 km in some places a depth
of 500 m can be easily reached. This characteristic is useful to reduce the installation costs
of the piping to connect the air reservoir to the system and limit the transport head losses.
Moreover all over the Mediterranean there are places with the right depth even at longer
distances, for these a oating plant may be used. The principal usefulness of this morphology
is that the majority of the Italian wind farms are installed in southern Italy, a place where
there are possibly the conditions to store energy through underwater CAES, but not mountain
water reservoirs for PHS, which is the only competitor for both high power and high capacity
applications at a reasonable cost.
22
Part II
Plant problem
6 Selection of the plant type
Given the evaluations done in the theoretical part, some basic characteristics of the system
can be chosen in order to obtain the maximum eciency of the system.
The fundamental design characteristics of the plant are:
Adiathermic CAES
Constant Reservoir Pressure (Given by Underwater Air Reservoir)
Constant Turbine Inlet Temperature (Given by Liquid TES)
A visual description of the chosen system is showed in gure (13)
Figure 13: Plant diagram of the studied system [1]
23
7 Building the model
In this part the introductory notions listed before will be used to create a model of the chosen
system in order to produce later a numerical simulation of the system in order to optimize it
and dimension some ancillary parts.
7.1 Gas model choice
The gas processed in this system, will be studied up to a pressure of 100 bar, the high pressures
involved make the ideal gas model normally used questionable, so in this section there will be
a little analysis of the various models:
Ideal gas model The ideal gas model is quite simple, it permits a straight forward analysis
of the transformations involving the gas. The analytical expression of this model is:
Pv = RT
Real Gas Model Real gases dont completely agree with the conventional gas equations,
in fact in particular pressure and temperature statuses they behave dierently.In order to
express this a coecient known as Compressibility Factor Z was introduced to correct the
standard formula:
Pv = ZRT
Z can be calculated in various ways, as the Viriale equations, or the Van der Waals equations,
but the simplest one is to use gure 14, but in order to use it, its necessary to dene some
parameters:
The reduced pressure P
r
:= P/P
c
The reduced temperature T
r
:= T/T
c
where, P
c
and T
c
are respectively the critical pressure and the critical temperature for a cer-
tain gas. For standard air these two parameters are [32]:
T
c
= 140.6 C
P
c
= 3769.290 kPa
And so given a range of working temperatures from 300 K to 550 K T
r
would be:
T
r
= 2.2633 4.1494
24
Figure 14: Compressibility factor in relation to the Tc and Pc [31]
And so giving a look to gure 14, it can be seen that Z would be for any change of pres-
sure, almost unitary. So for the sake of the numerical analysis the value of the compressibility
factor assumed will be:
Z = 1
Specic heat (C
p
) Evaluation Model The specic heat of a gas varies non-linearly with
temperature, creating some problems in the modelling of thermodynamic systems. For this
reason some models were made to describe the behaviour of C
p
with temperature, the most
used is:
C
p
=
5

i=1
_
a
i
_
T
1000
_
i1
_
C
v
= C
p
R [30]
Where the coecients a
i
are given by the table below:
Coecients a
1
a
2
a
3
a
4
a
5
Value 1057.69 -462.92 1182.59 -835.11 198.80
25
A visual description of this model can be seen in gure 15.
Figure 15: C
p
in relation to temperature [C]
The value of Cp for a certain transformation was determined as that Cp that gives equivalent
work as the work calculated through the integral of the polynomial above. This way through
an iterative calculation the value of Cp was adjusted for each phase of compression and ex-
pansion happening at dierent temperature ranges.
C
p,eq
=
_
T
2
T
1
C
p
dT
T
2
T
1
=
L
12
T
2
T
1
26
7.2 Gas transformation model choice
This section will cover briey adherent models found in literature about gas transformations.
7.2.1 Politropic transformation
The politropic transformation is the equivalent reversible transformation associated to what-
soever gas transformation, even if irreversible. This model makes possible the evaluation of
real gas transformations in which the irreversibility has to be taken into account. The basic
formula of the politropic transformation is here reported:
Pv
m
= cost (7.1)
where m is known as the politropic index, and in normal transformations may vary from 0 to
+. This transformation becomes the traditional isoentropic transformation when:
m = k = C
p
/C
v
If compression and expansion were perfectly isoentropic, then the eciency of the turboma-
chinery would be 1 and we could obtain the best performance for the elementary machines.
7.2.2 Isothermal transformation
A word must be said also about isothermal transformation, because the maximum eciency of
the system could be obtained also through a perfectly isothermal compression and expansion.
This because the energy consumed and released would be identical. This said, a perfectly
isothermal transformation for gases is quite dicult to obtain, because typical compressors
and expansors are almost adiabatic. This is why an approximation of it, called para-isothermal
transformation is often done.
7.2.3 Para-Isothermal transformation
The para-isothermal transformation is a combination of politropic and isobaric transforma-
tions, in order to obtain an almost isothermal transformation. The concept of an ideal para-
isothermal transformation is showed in the gure 16.
Ideal para-isothermal transformation The ideal transformation is obtained by alter-
nating real turbomachines and ideal heat exchangers that are simply thought to ideally bring
back the temperature to the same level phase after phase of the compression or expansion. A
detailed description of the phenomena was found here [30]. Because of the fact that no real
heat exchanger can do this an alternative model must be chosen.
Real para-isothermal transformation The analytical model described before , was taken
as a basis for the production of a much more adherent model counting also the non-ideal
heat exchangers used in a real case . In fact the graph showed above shows compression
(red) and expansion (green) transformations that are always brought back to the ambient
27
Figure 16: Thermodynamic paraisothermal cycle with ideal heat exchange
temperature by the ideal heat exchangers. This doesnt happen in reality, and the cycle
would have slightly increasing CITs (compressor inlet temperature) and slightly decreasing
TITs (turbine inlet temperature).This fact is a main complexity that imposed a numerical
approach to the problem, and reduces (greatly, as will be showed later) the eciency of the
storage system.
7.3 Continuous and localised pressure losses
Any gas owing in pipelines produces pressure losses. In the piping system and in the heat
exchangers some energy is lost in the form of heat, directly lowering the pressure of the gas.
In the examined case, the pressure losses will be expressed as suggested here: [33, p. 35]:
P

=
_
fL
D
+
_
c
2
2
(7.2)
7.3.1 Piping pressure losses
This type of losses happens after the compression and before the expansion, so during com-
pression, we obtain a lower pressure in the reservoir, and during expansion we obtain a lower
turbine inlet pressure. These are continuous pressure losses that can be evaluated as follows:
P

=
_
f
p
L
p
D
p
_
c
2
p
2
These losses are directly linked to the length of the piping, so an evaluation of the length
in relation to the depth of the reservoir and distance from the coast is necessary.
28
Piping length estimation In a real case, the length of the piping will be determined by
studying the site. As a model though an esteem has to be done, in order to calculate the head
losses, so an interval of values to work with is to be determined. As described in the gure
17 given a reservoir depth and a certain distance from the coast, a right triangle can be built.
All the possible cases will be between the length hypotenuse and the sum of the lengths of
the legs of the right triangle if the machinery is placed on the coast, while the value will be a
few more than the depth if the machinery is placed on a oating structure over the reservoir.
So the length limits the piping are (if the problem remains 2-dimensional) are:
L
max
= d + z
L
min
=

d
2
+ z
2
for on shore plant
L
min
= z for oating o shore plant
Where:
d is the distance from the coast
z is the depth of the reservoir
Figure 17: Schematic representation of a coast [34]
So anyway the length L of the piping will be:
z L d + z
However in the simulation the maximum value L = d +z will be considered, in order to have
a safety cushion if the real case imposed to go around big obstacles or else.
29
7.3.2 Local pressure losses
The localized pressure losses in the plant are not simple to predict, except for few cases:
Reservoir Inlet/Outlet pressure losses
Diameter variations of the pipe (Turbine/Compressor connections)
Heat exchangers
These are normally negligible compared to the continuous pressure losses, because as seen in
the geomorphological paragraph, the distance of adequate sites for air reservoirs are pretty
far from the coast, in the order of magnitude of a few kilometres.
However as suggested in [35] an approximation of the heat exchangers pressure losses can be
obtained by the following:
P
i
P
i
=
_
0.0083
1
_
(7.3)
Trying some values immediately gives an idea of the increase of compression ratio due to
this factor (gure 18), which is in the order of magnitude of 10

2 bar for each heat exchanger.

Even if this contribute to the losses is low, for the sake of completeness it will be considered,
given a negligible increase in the calculation diculty.
Figure 18: Heat exchanger pressure losses
30
7.3.3 Compression
Lets demonstrate how the pressure losses aect the compression ratio :

new
=
P
2,new
P
1
=
P
2,new
P
2
+ P
2
P
1
=
P + P
2
P
1

new
= +
P
P
1
(7.4)
Where:

new
is the new compression ratio after the losses.
P
2,new
is the new COP (compressor outlet pressure) after the losses.
P
2
, P
1
are respectively the reservoir pressure and the ambient pressure.
Given that eq. (7.4) is also valid for every stage:

new,i
=
i
+
P
i
P
i
(7.5)
Nonetheless this equation is valid:

i
=
1
Nc
(7.6)
So combining the equations (7.5),(7.4) and (7.6) we obtain:

c,i
=
Nc

id
+
P
pip
P
pip
_
+
P
HE
P
HE
Where (pip) is the piping component and (HE) is the heat exchanger component. A similar
equation can be obtained for expansion, as showed in the following section.
31
8 Numerical Approach to the problem
Because of the complexity of the chosen model, an analytical approach brought to even more
complexity, where a numerical approach based on few formulas simplied greatly the problem.
8.1 Optimization function
In order to analyse the CAES, an optimization function of the system was dened, based on
six important parameters. The function is the eciency of the overall system.
= f
_
,

V , C
r
, , TOT, N
c
_
The parameters on which the eciency depends are:
, the compression ratio

V the volume ow rate
C
r
the heat capacity ratio between gas and refrigerant
, the eciency of the heat exchangers
TOT, the Turbine Outlet Temperature
N
c
the number of compression phases
These where chosen because of either are controllable ow parameters, as and

V , or plant
design fundamental parameters, as , N
c
and TOT. Moreover TOT was chosen for example
over N
e
, the number of expansion phases, because of external limits imposed on TOT, more
easily complied this way.
32
8.2 Constraints
In order to comply to all the possible mechanical, thermodynamic and economical restrictions
imposed by real conditions, some constraints were imposed to the optimization function. The
constraints are the following:
TOT 5 C
This condition was due to avoiding the icing in the last stages of the expansion turbine.
In fact because of the non-fuel burning choice, the temperatures in the turbine could
lower below 0 C causing the formation of ice on the blades, and so lowering also the
eciency and the lifespan of the machine.
Q
e
Q
c
Because of the structure of the numerical simulation, the compliance to the rst law of
thermodynamics wasnt assured. This condition imposes that the heat absorbed by the
turbine has to be less or equal to the heat produced by the compression.
N
c
, N
e
2 This is a pre-constraint about the selection of the machines. No machine can
deal alone with both the pressure and temperature jump needed for a CAES system.
So this case is excluded , in order to avoid obtaining the eciency associated to the
adiabatic approach, that would probably be very high, and totally independent from .
Now the formulas used in the model will be showed and explained briey.
9 Equations on which the model is based
9.1 Elementary Compression Ratio
As discussed before, the compression ratio a single machine has to produce is inuenced by the
losses, so the real compression ratio of each i-th machine is given from the following formulas:
Compression

c,i
=
Nc

id
+
P
pip
P
pip
_
+
P
HE
P
HE
Expansion

e,i
=
Ne

id

P
pip
P
pip
_

P
HE
P
HE
33
Where:

id
is the ideal compression ratio, the one we want to obtain between the reservoir
pressure and the ambient pressure.

P
pip
P
pip
are the piping pressure losses.
N
c
and N
e
are the number of compression and expansion phases

P
HE
P
HE
are the Heat exchanger pressure losses
9.2 Specic Work of the single phase
In order to evaluate the eciency and the power output of the system, an expression of the
specic work is needed:
Compression
L
c,i
= C
p,gas
T
i
(
c
i
1)
The overall work consumed will be:
L
c
=
Nc

i=1
L
c,i
Expansion
L
e,i
= C
p,gas
T
e,i
_
1
e
i
_
The overall work produced will be:
L
e
=
Ne

i=1
L
e,i
9.3 Eciency
The overall eciency of the system is dened as the ratio between the outgoing energy ows
and the ingoing energy ows. For this particular system will be:
:=
L
e
L
c
34
9.4 Power
The power produced by the system is simply given by the following formula:
P := mL
e
where m is the mass ow rate evolving in the system.
9.5 Denition of heat exchange eciency
A lot of the following equations are based on this denition simple formula of eciency of
an heat exchanger. The eciency is the ratio between Q
re
, the heat actually exchanged, and
Q
max
the maximum heat possibly exchangeable by the heat exchanger.
:=
Q
re
Q
max
(9.1)
Now lets dene Q
re
and Q
max
in order to use this equation.
9.6 Real Exchanged Heat
The heat exchanged really between the refrigerant and the gas can be seen from two points
of view, the gas and the refrigerant points of view, so here are the formulas that describe both:
Compression
Q
re
= m
gas
C
p,gas
(T
i1

c
i
T
i
)
= m
ref
C
p,ref
(T
AC,i
T
AF
)
35
Where:
T
i
is the i-th Compressor Inlet Temperature (CIT), the T
1
temperature coincides with
the ambient temperature T
amb
T
AF
and T
AC,i
are respectively the cold refrigerant (constant during compression) and
the i-th hot refrigerant temperature (each heat exchanger gives o the refrigerant at a
dierent temperature).
Expansion
Q
re,e
= m
gas
C
p,gas
(T
e,i
T
ue,i1
)
= m
ref
C
p,ref
(T
AC
T
AF,i
)
Where:
T
e,i
is the i-th turbine inlet temperature (TIT).
T
ue,i
is the i-th turbine outlet temperature (TOT).
9.7 Maximum Exchangeable Heat
The maximum exchangeable heat is dened as the heat exchanged between the larger possible
temperature dierence and seen by the minimum Cp point of view. Its given by the following
formulas [33]:
Compression
Q
max
= m
min
C
p,min
(T
i1

c
i
T
AF
)
Expansion
Q
max,e
= m
min
C
p,min
(T
AC
T
ue,i1
)
36
9.8 Temperatures of the uids
In order to comply to the previously imposed constraints, and to better analyse the system, a
good overview of the temperatures reached in all the parts of the plant is benecial. To obtain
the following equation, was done a combination, of the denition of heat exchange eciency,
Q
re
and Q
max
.
Gas Compressor Inlet Temperature (CIT) The following equation expresses the tem-
perature of the gas when it enters the compressor in each i-th phase.
T
i
= T
i1

c
i

m
min
C
p,min
m
gas
C
p,gas
(T
i1

c
i
T
AF
)
where T
1
= T
amb
If the minimum mCp is the gas one (min=gas), then:
T
i
= T
i1

c
i
(T
i1

c
i
T
AF
)
If the minimum mCp is the refrigerant one (min=ref), then:
T
i
= T
i1

c
i


C
r
(T
i1

c
i
T
AF
)
Where, we dene C
r
, the heat capacity ratio:
C
r
=
m
gas
C
p,gas
m
ref
C
p,ref
Refrigerant Heat Exchanger Outlet Temperature This is the temperature that the
refrigerant uid has once exited the i-th heat exchange device, and so right before going to
the hot TES.
T
AC,i
= T
AF
+
m
min
C
p,min
m
ref
C
p,ref
(T
i1

c
i
T
AF
)
with T
AF
= cost
37
if min=gas,then:
T
AC,i
= T
AF
+ C
r
(T
i1

c
i
T
AF
)
If min=ref, then:
T
AC,i
= T
AF
+ (T
i1

c
i
T
AF
)
Hot TES Temperature The hot TES temperature is only the mean temperature of all
the temperatures of the uids exiting the heat exchangers, this because they mix together
once introduced in the TES, and because they have all the same mass ow rate:
T
AF
=
Nc

i=1
T
AC,i
N
c
Gas Turbine Outlet Temperature (TOT) This is the temperature the gas has after
being expanded by the i-th turbine phase:
T
ue,i
=
c
i
_
T
ue,i1
+
m
min
C
p,min
m
gas
C
p,gas
(T
AC
T
ue,i1
)
_
If min=gas, then:
T
ue,i
=
c
i
(T
ue,i1
+ (T
AC
T
ue,i1
))
If min=ref, then:
T
ue,i
=
c
i
_
T
ue,i1
+

C
r
(T
AC
T
ue,i1
)
_
38
Gas Turbine Inlet Temperature (TIT) This is the temperature the gas has a moment
before entering the turbine (the rst TIT is the reservoir one, and we assume that has the
same temperature of the sea):
T
e,i
= T
ue,i1
+
m
min
C
p,min
m
gas
C
p,gas
(T
AC
T
ue,i1
)
If min=gas, then:
T
e,i
= T
ue,i1
+ (T
AC
T
ue,i1
)
If min=ref, then:
T
e,i
= T
ue,i1
+

C
r
(T
AC
T
ue,i1
)
Warming Fluid Heat Exchanger Outlet Temperature This is the temperature of the
uid coming from the hot TES (here called Warming uid) after being cooled down by the
heat exchanger that is warming up the gas:
T
AF,i
= T
AC
+
m
min
C
p,min
m
ref
C
p,ref
(T
ue,i
T
AC
)
where T
AC
= cost
If min=gas, then:
T
AF,i
= T
AC
+ C
r
(T
ue,i
T
AC
)
If min=ref, then:
T
AF,i
= T
AC
+ (T
ue,i
T
AC
)
39
10 Results
Using the above equations, a numerical simulation was run. An iterative routine had to be
implemented in order to consider the head losses.
Boundary Conditions The following data was assumed during the simulation:
Ambient Temperature T
amb
= 295K
Air Reservoir Temperature T
serb
= 285K
Cold Refrigerant Temperature T
AF
= 289K
Politropic eciency of the machinery
pol
= 0.9
Piping Diameter D = 1 m
Piping roughness rug = 5.5 10

5 m
10.1 Pre-Dimensioning of the Plant
A rst series of routines were run to nd the best operating parameters in order to reach the
maximum eciency.
C
r
Heat Capacity Ratio Choice Having two dierent cases to choose in the previous
equations, it seems obvious that an optimization of the system based on the value of C
r
has
to be done. A simulation in dierent conditions was done and the type of curve seen in gure
19 was produced in all cases. The maximum of the curve is evidently when C
r
= 1 , which is
the condition of equivalent heat capacity between the two ows:
m
gas
Cp
gas
= m
ref
Cp
ref
This condition permits to dimension the liquid TES, by knowing the time of continuous op-
eration and the refrigerant mass ow rate needed for a given system:
m
ref
= m
gas
Cp
gas
Cp
ref
(10.1)
TOT Turbine Outlet Temperature Choice Conceptually a higher TOT has a double
eect, on one hand it reduces the amount of thermal power absorbed by the turbine, but on
the other it means that a greater asymmetry between compression and expansion is possible,
in particular the number of turbines can be greater than the compression machines, possibly
lling up the losses with higher quality energy.
The results are clear though, as can be seen in gure 20, and even if some sort of increase in
overall eciency can be seen, it is way too small compared to the increased cost of the system
40
Figure 19: How the overall eciency of the system varies in relation to Cr
due to the high number of additional machines needed. This said the best overall results
would be obtained for TOT=5 C, which is the minimum possible temperature according to
the constraints.
Figure 20: The eciency of the system versus TOT
41
N
c
Number of compression phases and the eciency of heat exchange These
two parameters are closely related, and inuence the eciency in a symbiotic way, for this
reason the results are showed together (gure 21). As can be seen, there is a tendency of the
Figure 21: The eciency of the system in relation to both the heat exchange eciency and
the number of compression phases
eciency to be optimum for a high number of compression phases for low eciency exchang-
ers, while at higher eciencies there are two dierent local maximums, one for low numbers
of compression phases, the other for lower ones.
This data concludes the denition of the Combined Approach, discussed before. The max-
imum eciency of the system, is more towards the isothermal approach when we use low
eciency heat exchangers, and more towards the adiabatic approach when using high ef-
ciency heat exchangers. A possible motivation of this behaviour is that, the isothermal
approach imposes a higher number of heat exchangers, and so if the quality is low a higher
number of them gets better results, while if the quality is high a greater number is not needed
in order to obtain high eciencies, and as can be seen unless you increase the number a lot,
its even worst because the ineciencies due to the increased number of exchanges is not
balanced by the increased eciency due to the isothermal approach. Certainly using very
high numbers of phases at high eciencies of the heat exchangers is also possible, but more
costly.
The overall eciency is almost linearly dependent from the heat exchange ef-
ciency Another fact showed in the table exposed before is the strong link between the
overall eciency of the system and the eciency of the heat exchangers . As can be seen
is gure 22, is almost linearly dependent form and it does so for a wide range of values.
This fact underlines that the main energy losses of the system now are the thermal losses
happening during the heat exchange and that the main focus of the optimization of this type
of plants has to be in the design of almost unitary eciency heat exchangers.
42
Figure 22: The trend of the overall system eciency versus the heat exchange eciency
10.2 Dimensioning the Plant
The analysis made above permits to chose the best parameters to run a CAES plant of this
type, these are:
C
r
= 1
TOT minimum possible (5 C)
maximum possible (0.8 realistic)
N
c
linked to s value, and chosen in gure 21 (N
c
=3 good overall eciency)
43
Figure 23: Power (coloured) and (dim blue) isolines versus and

V
Power and Eciency of the plant Given the above mentioned values of the fundamental
parameters, the following results showed in gure 23 were obtained.
The data shows the isolines of the power of the plant (coloured lines) and of the eciency
in relation to and

V . The isolines were chosen because permit a 3D view of the data in a
2D way. A few interesting facts can be seen in the chart:
The power of the plant doesnt increase signicantly with after 40/50 bar as expected
by looking the ideal work (gure 10)
The eciency of the plant remains nearly constant in almost all the chart excluding the
lower left corner, where is lower and

V is higher.
44
Figure 24: Tank volume per hour of storage time versus and

V
45
Volume of the air reservoir An important parameter for dimensioning the plant would
be the volume of the underwater air reservoir. Unfortunately it depends on three parameters:
V
tank
= f
_
,

V , storagetime
_
Figure 25: Power and volume comparison
For this reason, the graphic was produced using isolines and expressing the volume of the
air reservoir as Volume per hour of storage time, in this way a 4D space can be represented
in 2D (gure 24).
In order to compare also the power reachable by the system and the volume needed, the
data was combined in gure 25.
Also, a comparison between existing CAES plants and the studied system was done in
order to evaluate the volume usage. In order to compare a xed pressure type with, variable
pressure ones a mean compression rate was chosen. The results are shown in gure 26 ( = 60).
46
Figure 26: Volume of the air reservoir needed per hour of storage time, the data of the other
plants was obtained here [20][12] [36]
Temperature of the TES The average temperature in the liquid TES is a function of two
main parameters:
T
TES
= f (, )
As a result of this I will represent two perpendicular sections of this function in order to have
an idea of the function and of the temperatures reachable. (gure 27 and gure 28). The two
curves permit to chose the thermic uid evolving in the TES accordingly to the temperatures
involved, and as showed, for the chosen parameters the average TES temperature would be
165C. These temperatures can be reached by the use of pressurized Water at 6 bar of pressure
or also Synthetic oils, but the water has better properties as a thermal vector.
Volume of the liquid TES Through the equation (10.1) is possible to dimension the
liquid TES tank, given a specic refrigerant uid. For example using pressurized water and
a synthetic oil, that have the following properties at the average TES temperature :
Pressurized Water (6 bar) [37]
c = 4352 kJ/kg K at 165 C
= 950 kg/m
3
at 165 C
Therminol 2D (Synthetic Oil)[38]
c = 2700 kJ/kg K at 165 C
= 650 kg/m
3
at 165 C
47
Figure 27: Average TES temperature over a broad range of compression rates ( = 0.8)
Figure 28: Average TES temperature in relation to
The volume needed per hour of storage is:

V
TES
=
m
gas

ref
Cp
gas
Cp
ref
(10.2)
A graphic view of the data can be seen in gure 29, where = 50 was chosen to have
a representation of the volume as a function of the power only, comparing the two types of
refrigerant.
48
Figure 29: TES Volume needed per hour or storage using water or a specic synthetic oil as
refrigerant ( = 50)
11 Conclusions
As a result of the analysis the following statements were proven right:
The studied system complies to both the power and the storage times reachable by a
CAES system.(gure 6)
The eciency of this type of system is in the range of 60-80 %, as obtained by other
similar studies [39]
It isnt convenient to increase the storage pressure over 40-50 bar, because the energy
density doesnt increase suciently.
The principal limit to the overall eciency is the eciency of the heat exchangers.
Increasing the TOT, doesnt increase signicantly the eciency
For high heat exchange eciencies the adiabatic approach is preferred, while the isother-
mal approach is better for low eciency exchangers.
The storage volumes for the constant pressure CAES type can be considerably lower
than the constant volume ones.
The use of pressurized water requires considerably less TES volume compared to a
synthetic oil.
49
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