Beneath a 25-year settlement value almost $1 billion, a group alternative aggregator has agreed to purchase 200 MW of eight-hour power storage from Hydrostor’s deliberate 500 MW facility in California.
From pv journal USA
California’s Central Coast Group Vitality has executed a 25-year energy buy settlement with Hydrostor, valued at almost $1 billion, for 200 MW/1600 MWh of power storage out of a deliberate 500 MW of compressed air power storage system.
Hydrostor’s storage know-how can successfully retailer as much as eight hours of power, the corporate says, with out utilizing fuels, in a footprint a lot smaller than a equally sized pumped hydro storage. services. The five hundred MW undertaking would require lower than 100 hectares. The California undertaking is considered one of 4 power storage initiatives that Hydrostor is growing worldwide, after finishing two pilot-scale initiatives.
A Hydrostor video says its know-how saves power by first utilizing electrical energy to run a compressor, producing sizzling compressed air, and capturing and storing warmth with a thermal administration system. The compressed air is then despatched underground by a shaft, and saved in goal constructed caves which are initially crammed with water. Within the course of, compressed air forces water down a shaft right into a closed loop reservoir above.
When electrical energy is required, water from the reservoir is allowed to fill underground caverns, which carry the saved compressed air in a shaft to the floor, the place it’s heated by the saved warmth after which expanded by a turbine to generate electrical energy.
Central Coast Group Vitality (3CE) stated its 200 MW share of the undertaking will assist the company obtain its aim of offering 100% clear and renewable electrical energy by 2030 to 447,000 clients between in Santa Cruz and Santa Barbara counties. The undertaking is positioned exterior of Rosamond in Kern County, and is named Willow Rock.
“The retirement of fossil fuels would require important quantities of power storage and that can require the event of latest applied sciences and enhancements in current applied sciences,” stated Robert Shaw, chief working officer of 3CE. “By pushing the envelope, we’re clearing the best way to reliability and lowered emissions.”
3CE has executed 19 energy buy and power storage agreements since its formation in 2017. The company at the moment has commitments for 856 MW of fresh and renewable era and 285 MW of power storage capability. . 5 of those initiatives got here on-line final yr, now serving 22% of the company’s load.
Hydrostor says the Willow Rock undertaking will cost utilizing extra renewable power and discharge the grid during times of upper demand, lowering the necessity for brand new services that generate peak-demand and delay the necessity for “costly, troublesome to allow” transmission strains.
The corporate expects the undertaking to make use of as much as 40 full-time operators, and don’t have any efficiency degradation over a 50-plus yr life.
Because the Hydrostor know-how makes use of “confirmed elements” from the hydrocarbon sector, the corporate says it “depicts a transparent path for abilities and experience from the fossil business gas to play an necessary function on the earth’s power transition.”
Toronto-based Hydrostor stated offtake discussions are ongoing with a number of events for the steadiness of 300 MW of the five hundred MW undertaking. Fashioned in 2010, the corporate calls its know-how Superior Compressed Air Vitality Storage, or A-CAES.
On January 10, 2022, the corporate acquired a $250 million fairness funding from the personal fairness group of Goldman Sachs, with a further $25 million funding from the Canada Pension Plan Funding Board in April.
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