Houston startup plans to store wind energy underground

http://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/columnists/tomlinson/article/Houston-startup-plans-to-store-wind-energy-11272381.php

by phr4ts • 9 years ago

41 8 9 years ago

houstonchronicle.com

c-smile• 9 years ago

"Apex will need a small amount of natural gas to heat the air it compresses to maximize turbine output."

As far as I understand they need to heat up the turbine as air (a gas) cools down upon (adiabatic) expansion.

And while accumulating / compressing air in ground lacunae, pumping it into the storage, we are just heating up the ground.

Am I right in my understanding of the process thermodynamic ?

rdiddly• 9 years ago

Sounds correct to me. It sounds like they're hoping the compressive heating effects will be dispersed through a large enough volume to be negligible. Whereas the expansive cooling will be concentrated at the point of exit.

ams6110• 9 years ago

PV = nRT

samcheng2• 9 years ago

You are correct, the article has a typo and should state 'decompresses' instead of 'compresses.'

Black-Plaid• 9 years ago

and the system can fill the cavern with air while generating electricity. You can't charge and discharge a battery at the same time.

Umm, does this seem as pointless to everyone everyone else as me?

Dylan16807• 9 years ago

It's a very strange statement. There's no reason to do it, and you can easily do it anyway with your multiple batteries.

samcheng2• 9 years ago

The article, and the comments here, are missing an important fact that really helps clarify how these compressed-air energy storage systems work:

These systems use the compressed air as input into a natural gas turbine. You can think of the underground storage as a giant intercooler that stores the output of the first (compressor) half of a natural gas turbine, and then feeds that compressed air into the second (combustion) half.

See a good explanation here: http://energystorage.org/compressed-air-energy-storage-caes

taylorhou• 9 years ago

Glad to see something about houston on HN regardless of what the startup is doing! Woot woot

Houston startup plans to store wind energy underground

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