First of lets have a look at different key types of energy, when talking about energy storage:
- Kinetic energy- The energy a moving object is carrying
- Potential energy- Imagine a holding a stone of the ground, if you let go the stone will move, but right now it isen't moving so at this very moment there is potential energy (i hope you understand what im trying to say, and sorry for the bad explanation)
- Radiant energy- it is rays that carry energy...
- Electrical energy- Electricity also carry energy, but you probably knew that
Okay, so know that we know about these key terms, what does this have to do with storing energy, by compressing air? Glad you asked! By compressing air, we can create an overpressure that wants equalize it self to the normal
atmospheric pressure, and when we open up to the container the air will carry the energy we used to compress the air, as kinetic energy. Try to think of it as inflating a balloon, you use some energy to inflate it right, but wen you let go of the balloon it will fly away... And thats actually roughly the same principle, but with the CAES systems (compressed air energy storage- in CAES you forgot ;-) ) it is of course on a much larger scale.
Illustration:
So on the image above you can see, how a CAES system might function there are different types, and they all have different ups and downs, as with everything else. But a genereal thing that at least in my perspective makes CAES systems interesting is the fact that they are very flexible. They are flexible as they you can use all sorts of different containers to store the compressed air, to give an example you can use old oil reservoirs, as you only need a
porous material, with a sealing material above. If you are not familiar this is also a key thing to look for when identifying places to drill for oil. Unless you have spend the last couple of years under living under a stone, you most likely know, that we have drained a lot of these spots from oil, to fuel our modern way of living. So who knows something good might come from us draining our planet from natural resources... Just maybe
If you would like to get more in depth here are some links:
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compressed_air_energy_storage (good old Wiki)
- http://energystorage.org/energy-storage/storage-technology-comparisons/caes
- https://caes.pnnl.gov/pdf/PNNL-22235-FL.pdf
Might go in depth with other different types of CAES systems and technologies later