[HN Gopher] Highview Developing 50MW/500MWh Liquid Air Energy St...
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Highview Developing 50MW/500MWh Liquid Air Energy Storage Facility
in Chile
Author : kieranmaine
Score : 80 points
Date : 2021-07-05 11:20 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (highviewpower.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (highviewpower.com)
| BurningFrog wrote:
| Couldn't find anything describing any details of the actual
| technology, even in the FAQ (https://highviewpower.com/faq/).
|
| Mostly wondering where and how they store the liquid air. Metal
| tanks? Underground caverns?
| ncmncm wrote:
| Metal tanks. Liquified air is pretty compact. Probably, as the
| tech matures they will move to burying them, and the heat
| reservoirs too. For a pilot plant, keeping everything exposed
| and maintainable is important.
|
| As they get bigger, storing the heat removed in molten salt
| might prove useful.
|
| The tradeoff of excellent underground insulation vs.
| accessibility for maintenance is tricky. For the case of molten
| salt, expectation of corrosion complicates it further.
|
| With any luck, plummeting aerogel insulation cost will make the
| question moot.
| driverdan wrote:
| This press release doesn't say anything about system efficiency.
| If it was high they'd be promoting that fact. Since it involves
| refrigeration it's probably quite low. That makes me wonder why
| they went with this system.
| rsynnott wrote:
| They claim 70%:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryogenic_energy_storage#Effic...
|
| > That makes me wonder why they went with this system.
|
| Cost, presumably. The stated figures would give $300/kWh, which
| seems to be about where the all-in cost for lithium ion
| facilities lands, but this would likely have a longer lifespan.
| Gibbon1 wrote:
| Offhand impression. With thermal storage systems. Round trip
| efficiency numbers range from really bad at 50%. To really
| good at 80%. Batteries are probably 80-90 percent efficient.
|
| Notably to me is that cost per mega watt hour varies a lot
| more than two to one. Which says to me energy storage is
| economically feasible using a number of different
| technlogies.
| andy_ppp wrote:
| Yes, I've wondered what the issue is with doing things like this,
| I mean surely there's a way to do this with molten salt blocks
| too. What is the efficiency on this and how easy is it to
| maintain!?
| Olreich wrote:
| People are working on molten salt batteries:
| https://ambri.com/technology/ is the only commercial one I know
| of though.
| aaron695 wrote:
| Liquid air energy storage systems: A review (August 2021)
| https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S136403212...
|
| "Liquid Air Energy Storage systems have the potential to be a
| competitive local and grid scale energy storage technology.
| They also have the potential to facilitate the penetration of
| renewable energy technologies. However, there is a clear
| disconnect between what has been proven in literature, and what
| has been demonstrated in practice."
| mattashii wrote:
| > August 2021
|
| I'm very concerned with the credibility of that source based
| on this alone. Unpublished and/or future-dated articles are
| to be taken with a pile of salt.
| asah wrote:
| molten salt? ;-)
| patall wrote:
| What you are seeing is the online preview, August 2021 is
| when it appears in print.
|
| This kind of publishing is becoming more and more common,
| most likely to boost the journals impact factor (average
| number of citation within 2 years of publication). It's
| sketchy but doesn't say much about the article, only the
| journal.
| epistasis wrote:
| Nothing sketchy about the journal either. The next issue
| may come out in August due to the publication schedule
| and article queue. But there's no reason to delay
| availability of the article after it's addressed all the
| reviewer and editorial concerns.
| bob1029 wrote:
| Molten salt is going to be way more efficient on a round-trip
| basis. According to wikipedia, its something like 70% for
| molten salt, and 25% for cryogenic.
|
| There are likely other engineering factors involved, but those
| efficiency figures are pretty damning on the surface.
| ajnin wrote:
| > 25% for cryogenic
|
| Also from Wikipedia, the efficiency if 25% if you let the
| heat of liquefaction and the "cold" of vaporization go to
| waste, but it can be improved to 70% if you store that heat
| and re-inject it in the cycle.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| I'd think one major issue at this scale would be heat generated
| when pressurizing, and heat lost (= freezing) when
| depressurizing, the latter which could cause weakness and
| damage in any materials affected. But, I'm not a scientist or
| anything, take this armchair take with a grain of salt -
| there's other places where they do a lot with
| compression/decompression at scale, e.g. natural gas storage
| and transport.
| whoknowswhat11 wrote:
| I've pumped scuba tanks and other light pressure stuff - in those
| applications a fair bit of energy is lost to waste heat. Curious
| how this is handled in terms of efficiency
| twobitshifter wrote:
| Heat is the output of the depressurization process so I would
| think that would not be a problem.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| The article is a bit light on details, but I'd guess that both
| heat and cold generation (due to compression and decompression
| of the air) could be used for a district cooling system.
| fghorow wrote:
| The company's "technology description" video makes clear that
| storage of both "waste" heat and cool is an explicit part of
| their system.
| tgtweak wrote:
| Interesting concept. At $150,000,000 for 500MwH = $300/KwH of
| energy storage. Tesla's Megapack solution is $300/KwH also,
| giving this a good running chance if they can get costs down with
| scale.
|
| I like that it can potentially run for decades without chemical
| degradation, and that it is environmentally friendly since most
| of the parts (compressors, dryers, generators, tanks) can be
| recycled down the line with minimal environmental impact.
|
| Things that seem concerning at first glance:
|
| * Maintaining sub -196'C requires a lot of complex refrigeration,
| monitoring and pressurization equipment, which can be prone to
| failure (see Hampson-Linde cycle). The expansion factor of liquid
| air to air is roughly 800x.
|
| * Round-trip energy efficiency: I can't see a system taking
| electrical input to produce liquid air on the way in and
| similarly to run a turbine generator on the other end without
| having substantial losses both ways... I believe Tesla is around
| 88% on their system.
|
| * Gasses used in refrigeration continue to be an environmental
| and health concern even with modern compounds.
|
| Hopefully with some cost scaling or proof of longevity it can be
| a valid solution.
|
| 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hampson%E2%80%93Linde_cycle
| asdfadsfgfdda wrote:
| The linde cycle is not used industrially, they are using a
| reverse brayton cycle. This cycle use air as the refrigerant,
| and is probably the most widely distributed industrial cycle in
| the world (because liquified gases do not transport easily).
| [deleted]
| boringg wrote:
| What do they use for the refrigerant? Refrigerant leaks have
| some of the highest green house gas potentials of all
| compounds. Depending on the product > 2000 times global warming
| potential of CO2.
| tjoff wrote:
| _> Depending on the product > 2000 times global warming
| potential of CO2._
|
| Doesn't say much without any volumes attached to it.
| boringg wrote:
| Thats per unit volume. So as an example 1 tonne of HFC-23 =
| 12400 tonne of CO2e (Carbon Dioxide Equivalence) in terms
| of global warming potential.
| tjoff wrote:
| And what if you have 1 tonne of HFC-23 vs. 300000 tonne
| of CO2e ?
| asdfasgasdgasdg wrote:
| I would imagine a facility like this would have much better
| monitoring for refrigerant pressure drops than a typical
| consumer-grade system, plus a staff onsite that would be able
| to close valves and rapidly find and repair leaks.
| IgorPartola wrote:
| Not to be too glib, but that's what we imagined about
| Chernobyl as well.
| tw04 wrote:
| And we were right. Chernobyl was the result of repeated
| bad actions that people knew were bad actions at the
| time.
|
| Furthermore Chile has a democratic government, not a
| communist dictatorship, so it's extremely unlikely for
| something like that to occur there.
| soperj wrote:
| I don't agree with the poster, but Fukushima? 3-Mile
| island? I don't think the democracy has anything to do
| with it.
| andromeduck wrote:
| Fukushima and three mile island killed a combined total
| of one person vs a hundred in the rushed, botched and
| completely unnecessary evacuation.
|
| Oil & Gas kill far more people every hour of every day.
|
| If we followed your logic trains and cars and airplanes
| would have never taken off.
| pornel wrote:
| The fact that you can name _all_ the major incidents is a
| testament of the safety of the technology (it really is
| -- see deaths per TWh of various technologies).
|
| Fukushima was hit by an earthquake and tsunami. Most
| deaths attributed to the Fukushima disaster were people
| who froze to death because they couldn't afford heating
| after electricity price hike caused by Fukushima's
| shutdown.
|
| Keep in mind that nuclear plants have been operating
| since these incidents all over the world, without further
| problems. There are over 440 reactors are running right
| now. Even _the_ Chernobyl power plant kept operating the
| remaining three reactors until the year 2000.
| arcticbull wrote:
| And even they they only, to my knowledge, shut down the
| remaining three reactors in exchange for funding from the
| international community for the New Safe Containment
| sarcophagus. Nine other similar RBMK reactors have
| continued to operate (albeit with some safety retrofits)
| since then without incident.
| IgorPartola wrote:
| Not having a totalitarian government is a necessary but
| not a sufficient condition to prevent covering up of
| accidents.
| arcticbull wrote:
| Singapore is basically a totalitarian state and I'd trust
| them with a nuclear reactor. Depends on the situation I
| suppose.
| pornel wrote:
| This is like using Hindenburg as a caution against party
| balloons.
| staunch wrote:
| The Hindenburg disaster should definitely serve as a
| caution against using _hydrogen_ party balloons.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FH5JwHeKnZo
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DUIcCq0Hes
| asdfasgasdgasdg wrote:
| Despite your disclaimer, I do feel this is too glib. What
| is the takeaway? Yes, a bad thing happened one time at
| that facility (and others, at other times). That doesn't
| have much bearing on what I said. It is still reasonable
| to suspect that refrigerant leaks will not be a major
| problem at this facility.
| IgorPartola wrote:
| I am saying that in general I would prefer a system
| that's safe by design, not by the fact that there are
| going to be people there who can make very human mistakes
| and create a problem. It is all relative: is it safer to
| run a facility like this or to transport a tanker-full of
| crude oil across waterways? But just saying that well
| there will be people there to open a valve when bad
| things happen is naive.
| asdfasgasdgasdg wrote:
| When comparing the risk of refrigerant leaks in cooling
| systems in general vs heat exchange systems at a highly
| technical and actively monitored facility, it is relevant
| that the facility is actively monitored and probably has
| much better controls than typical refrigerant-using
| installations. It's not naive to observe that most
| refrigerant leaks are likely from systems that are not
| monitored (i.e. almost all residential systems and
| probably most commercial ones).
| Freestyler_3 wrote:
| No matter how fast they notice it, a leak will have a huge
| impact even if just for a second. Bigger system means
| bigger pipes or faster transport, either will result in
| more loss than what a whole consumer grade system can
| possibly contain. But like someone said, they most likely
| wont be using any consumer grade gasses. Big systems use
| gas that is more dangerous for humans nearby, but has no
| impact on the ozon.
| asdfadsfgfdda wrote:
| They likely use air as the refrigerant, like most air
| liquefaction plants.
| boringg wrote:
| Fair enough - I am unfamiliar with refrigeration at scale.
| As long as none of the HFC, PFCs, HFE, CFC etc compounds
| are used seems like a low risk.
| ncmncm wrote:
| THIS. Nobody uses freon for industrial-scale refrigerant.
|
| Even at intermediate scale, ammonia is preferred.
| contravariant wrote:
| * Round-trip energy efficiency: I can't see a system taking
| electrical input to produce liquid air on the way in and
| similarly to run a turbine generator on the other end without
| having substantial losses both ways... I believe Tesla is
| around 88% on their system.
|
| Well you can just power an engine on the temperature gradient.
| That's going to incur some losses though. This seems to be the
| downside of storing energy cooling stuff, you have to fight the
| second law of thermodynamics both ways.
| ncmncm wrote:
| You get to run _both_ a heat engine, on the temperature
| difference, _and_ a turbine, on the resulting boiled-off gas.
| So, you get benefit of thermodynamics both ways. Furthermore,
| the heat engine uses heat pumped out and saved from
| liquifying the gases.
|
| It is typically a mistake to assume people behind an
| innovative development, that they are spending $150M on, are
| idiots.
| kolinko wrote:
| As for the price per kWh, I guess this system scales
| sublinearly (as opposed to more or less linearly with LiIon).
| They can probably increase the number of tanks storing oxygen
| in the future for way less than $300kWh (assuming they keep the
| same system wattage).
| mcot2 wrote:
| Batteries should see drastic declines as well. $300 is
| already considered a steep price even though it is the all-in
| price. We are talking about $50 at the cell level for LFP
| chemistry soon.
| CydeWeys wrote:
| I came to precisely the opposite conclusion. Batteries keep
| getting cheaper every year, while air pressurization
| technology does not (that is a very mature technology). So if
| this air pressurization is only the equal of batteries in
| year one, then it's already lost.
| hokkos wrote:
| The point is not about future price evolution, but the
| marginal price of storing 1h more, if you just need another
| tank it will be cheaper than having the same energy in a
| battery, with the same system to store and destore the
| liquid air. Li-ion is not a good fit for long term storage.
| CydeWeys wrote:
| This system is already 500 MWh (that's huge). How much
| better scaling do you think it's going to get beyond
| that?
| ncmncm wrote:
| The expensive part is the 50MW bits. They can build out
| storage capacity cheaply, because it is just tankage.
| Robotbeat wrote:
| I mean... you can recycle batteries, too. And the environmental
| "issue" with batteries is largely a red herring (steel mining
| and even recycling would look bad if you had a campaign of
| misinformation against it like batteries do, cherry-picking
| dramatic industrial-scale images without comparison with what
| it is replacing). $300/kWh isn't anything to really write home
| about.
|
| Not opposed to it, though. While I don't think it's a slam-dunk
| win against batteries by any stretch, it's good enough not to
| be a waste of money if someone builds one (which is probably
| true for that cement-block gravity energy storage thing).
| usrusr wrote:
| "you can recycle batteries"
|
| It has been done, in a laboratory. Scrap steel is routinely
| sold at market rate.
| markvdb wrote:
| Low-tech magazine has run a few quite interesting articles about
| storing energy in compressed air. [0]
|
| [0] https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/compressed-air/
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