In the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) compressed air energy storage (CAES) is currently viewed as the most promising energy storage technology due to Texas having suitable geology for CAES and few locations suitable for pumped-hydro storage. CAES is a proven technology but the economics for new facilities are uncertain. This work quantified the economic prospects for CAES in ERCOT as a function of installed wind capacity, natural gas price, and CAES capital cost. Two types of models were developed and used in this work. The first type of model was a CAES dispatch optimization model, which determined the maximum operating profits a CAES facility could earn given a set of electricity and ancillary services market prices. These models were used to examine several separate research questions relating to the maximum potential for CAES and the impact of uncertainty and other real-world complications. The models determined that the maximum operating profit from 2002-2010 varied widely from year to year and averaged $120-140/kW-year, which is likely below the operating profits required to justify investing in CAES. The models also determined that current price forecasting methods are sufficient to earn approximately 95% of the operating profits achievable with perfect knowledge of all prices in the year. The second type of model was a unit commitment model of ERCOT, which determined the least-cost operation of all the generators in the generation fleet to meet given load. The unit commitment model was used to determine electricity and ancillary service market prices under different assumptions about natural gas price, installed wind capacity, and installed CAES capacity. The CAES dispatch optimization model was then used to determine the operating profits of a CAES facility under these scenarios. CAES operating profits were found to increase with increasing natural gas price and installed wind capacity and to decrease with increasing installed CAES capacity. CAES operating profits were estimated to support installed CAES capacities from zero to more than 6 GW, depending on the natural gas price, installed wind capacity, installed CAES capacity, and the CAES capital costs. The strongest determinant of the maximum CAES capacity that would be profitable is the natural gas price, followed by the CAES capital costs. / text

This report presents an overview of the engineering considerations involved in the design of grid-scale battery energy storage systems. Grid-scale is defined here as systems over 1 MW in rated power, typically operated by a utility, independent power producer, or Independent System Operator (ISO). The physical components of a BESS are presented and explained, including power electronics, an introduction to various commercially available battery technologies, necessary control systems, and balance of plant hardware. Also presented are a variety of real-world applications of battery energy storage systems, showing how the specific application determines what mix of technology will be selected when designing the system, as well as explaining the foundation for the control algorithms. / text

Electric and hybrid electric vehicles’ batteries not only have great potential for alleviating the world’s gasoline consumption problem, but may also stand poised to secure the world’s renewable energy generation. Electric and hybrid electric vehicles’ batteries that have reached the end of their cycle life in vehicles may still have the capacity to be repurposed into stationary utility energy storage. However, the phenomenon known as battery aging must be given careful consideration in the construction of a repurposed battery energy storage system. The battery aging phenomenon reduces the battery’s nominal voltage, capacity and current rating, while increasing its internal resistance. These factors were taken into consideration for the development of the Repurposed Battery Energy Storage System (RBESS). The system utilizes a method called Multi-Level Interlaced Pulse Charging (MLIPC) which was developed for the RBESS to manage the battery’s voltage, current, and energy to extend the useful cycle life of the batteries. The repurposed battery energy storage system has been modeled in PSCAD/EMTDC and tested in a constructed hardware implementation of the system.

Electric and hybrid electric vehicles’ batteries not only have great potential for alleviating the world’s gasoline consumption problem, but may also stand poised to secure the world’s renewable energy generation. Electric and hybrid electric vehicles’ batteries that have reached the end of their cycle life in vehicles may still have the capacity to be repurposed into stationary utility energy storage. However, the phenomenon known as battery aging must be given careful consideration in the construction of a repurposed battery energy storage system. The battery aging phenomenon reduces the battery’s nominal voltage, capacity and current rating, while increasing its internal resistance. These factors were taken into consideration for the development of the Repurposed Battery Energy Storage System (RBESS). The system utilizes a method called Multi-Level Interlaced Pulse Charging (MLIPC) which was developed for the RBESS to manage the battery’s voltage, current, and energy to extend the useful cycle life of the batteries. The repurposed battery energy storage system has been modeled in PSCAD/EMTDC and tested in a constructed hardware implementation of the system.

Thesis (M.Phil.)--University of Hong Kong, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available in print.

Total produced energy in the world is mostly consumed as thermal energy which is used for space or water heating. Currently, more than 85% of total thermal energy consumption is supplied from fossil fuels. This high consumption rate increases the depletion risk of fossil fuels as well as causing a tremendous release of hazardous gases such as carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, sulfur oxides, nitrogen oxides and particulate matter that effects both environment and human health. Those drawbacks force humankind to search for new technologies, like renewables, to reduce fossil fuel dependency on thermal energy production. Thermal energy storage in adsorbent beds is one of the resulting technologies. Adsorption is an exothermic process in which a fluid (adsorbate) diffuses into the pores of a porous solid material (adsorbent) and trapped into the crystal lattice. In this system, exothermic adsorption of water vapor from air is carried out by using hybrid adsorbent of activated alumina and zeolite. In previous studies, through literature review, this adsorbent was selected to be the most efficient adsorbent for this process due to its high water adsorption capacity, high heat of adsorption, and stability [Dicaire and Tezel, 2011]. In this study, previous studies started on this project was confirmed and pursued by trying to increase the efficiency of the process and confirm the feasibility and applicability of this system in larger scales. In this thesis, various zeolite and activated alumina hybrid adsorbents with varying zeolite compositions were screened to find the most efficient adsorbent for thermal energy storage process that gives the highest energy density. Then, existing small column was replaced with a new one, which is 16 times bigger in volume, in order to confirm the feasibility of this process at larger scales. Applicability of on-off heat release in adsorption process was also investigated by conducting several on-off experiments at different on-off time periods. Moreover, exothermic adsorption process was modeled by doing mass and energy balances in the column, water accumulation balance in the pellets, and energy balance in the column wall. Validity of this model was confirmed by comparing it with experimental results at different column volumes, and at different volumetric flow rates. Finally, an overall plant design, capital cost and thermal energy price estimations were done for adsorption thermal energy storage plants for different storage capacities and payback periods.

The Free Electron Laser (FEL) and Rail Gun are electric weapons which will require a significant amount of stored energy for operation. These types of weapons are ideal for use onboard an all-electric ship. An investigation is made of the effects these weapons will have on a proposed electrical system architecture using simulation modeling. Specifically, this thesis identifies possible design weaknesses and shows where further research and modeling is needed in order to ensure the proper integration of these electric weapons onboard an all-electric ship. The integration of these electric weapon systems with the power systems on electric ships will have an impact on naval operations. Several scenarios concerning specific naval missions are investigated using simulation software to understand the impact and limitations on the electric system using these new electric weapons.

The objective of this thesis was to investigate the suitability of some different Li4Ti5O12 materials as a negative electrode in hybrid supercapacitors. A hybrid supercapacitor is a combination of a battery and an electric double-layer capacitor that uses both a battery material and a capacitor material in the same device. The target for these combination devices is to bridge the performance gap between batteries and capacitors and enable both high energy and power density. To achieve this, materials with high capacity as well as high rate capability are needed. To improve the rate of the commonly slow battery materials nanosizing has been found to be an effective solution. This study shows that Li4Ti5O12 has a significantly higher experimental capacity than the most common capacitor material, activated carbon. The capacity remained high even at high discharge rates due to a successful nanostructuring that increased the accessibility of the material and shortened the diffusion distance for the ions, leading to a much improved power performance compared with the bulk material. The use of a nanostructured Li4Ti5O12 material in a hybrid device together with activated carbon was estimated to double the energy density compared to an electric double-layer capacitor and maintain the same good power performance. To further increase the energy density also improved materials for the positive electrode should be investigated.

The main objective of my thesis is to develop a numerical model for small-scale thermal energy storage system and to see the effect of dispersing nano-particles and using fractal-like branching heat exchanger in phase change material for our proposed thermal energy storage system. The associated research problems investigated for phase change material (PCM) are the low thermal conductivity and low rate of heat transfer from heat transfer fluid to PCM in thermal energy storage system. In this study an intensive study is carried out to find the best material for thermal storage and later on as a high conductive nano-particle graphite is used to enhance the effective thermal conductivity of the mixed materials. As a thermal storage material molten solar Salt (60% NaNO3+40%KNO3) has been selected, after that detailed numerical modeling of the proposed design has been done using MATLAB algorithm and following the fixed grid enthalpy method. The model is based on the numerical computation of 1-D finite difference method using explicit scheme. The second part of the study is based on enhancing the heat transfer performance by introducing the concept of fractal network or branching heat exchanger. Results from the numerical computation have been utilized for the comparison between a conventional heating system (with a simple single tube as a heat exchanger) and a passive PCM thermal energy storage system with branching heat exchanger using NTU-effectiveness method and charging time calculation. The comparison results show a significant amount improvement using branching network and mixing nano-particle in terms of heat transfer (13.5% increase in effectiveness of branching level-02 heat exchangers from the conventional one ), thermal conductivity (increased 73.6% with 20% graphite nano-particle mix with solid PCM), charging time (57% decrease of charging time for the effect of both the dispersion of Graphite nano-particle and branching heat exchange) and pressure drop (36% decrease in level-02 branching). The results of this study prove that the proposed medium temperature TES system coupled with solar ORC can be the stepping-stone for energy efficient and sustainable future in small-scale/building level as the system proves to be better in terms of enhanced heat transfer, increased thermal conductivity and reduced pumping power and overall sustainability.

The increasing share of renewable electricity will make energy storage technologies indispensable in the future. In this study, the potential of grid energy storage technologies is discussed, focusing on the Nordic countries as well as Germany. It is challenging to balance the intermittency of wind power and solar power production in the energy system. In Norway and Sweden, and to some extent Finland, hydropower is a very important balancing resource. Compressed Air Energy Storage (CAES) is a technology that has not had a real breakthrough yet. There are ongoing projects at different locations where one of the targets is to achieve better round-trip efficiency by taking care of the heat generated at compression. Pumped hydroelectric storage (PHS) has advantages in being cost-efficient and has a high round-trip efficiency. There is probably a high theoretical potential of new generating capacity in Norway and Sweden, but the electricity cost does not vary enough for new developments to be profitable at the moment. The environmental and social impact of PHS plants is an important and difficult aspect to handle. Power-to-gas, power-to-power and hydrogen storage has been getting more attention recently but needs more research to increase the round-trip efficiency and to reduce the costs of electrolysers, storage and fuel cells. Batteries can be well suited as a minute reserve or for peak shaving but are currently not cost-efficient for long-time storage. With lower prices and the possibility of using more abundant metals with less environmental and social impact batteries could play a larger role in electric grids. There might be possibilities of integrating batteries in electric vehicles with power systems as well.To speed up the development of energy storage technologies, governmental subsidies might be necessary. In the future, a larger variation in electricity cost can be expected during different times of the day and the year, which will make energy storage facilities more profitable.