An invention that happened decades ago in north west England is being reborn, with the promise of revamping how we store clean energy.
Close to the village of Carrington, construction on what will become the first commercial-scale liquid air energy storage facility in the world is underway, a project that can help address one of the largest challenges facing renewable energy.
The facility is set to start operating in 2026, which is a revival of technology that has since been substantially ignored since its inception almost half a century ago.
With the world's renewable electricity capacity reaching unprecedented heights, as renewable sources have outstripped coal, there has never been greater urgency to store this energy during times when the sun is not shining and the wind is not blowing.
Inconsistency is a fundamental issue in the transition to renewable energy. Solar and wind power are intermittent, unlike fossil fuel plants that can be switched on and off accordingly to demand. This brings about circumstances where there is either minimal electricity, causing blackouts, or excess, which may destroy grid infrastructure.
Increased reliance on renewable energy has escalated the need for grid-scale storage, prompting Shaylin Cetegen, a chemical engineer at MIT, to study energy storage systems. Saving excess power will guarantee consistency in supply and safeguard the power grid.
The technology has a sophisticated three-step operation process. Air is first captured in the ambient air and purified. Second, it is squeezed to a very high degree of pressure.
Third, it is cooled to -196 °C (-321°F), and it becomes a liquid which may be kept in insulated tanks.
The reverse process takes place when there is a peak electrical demand.
The stored liquid air is pumped out and heated, causing it to evaporate into gas. The resulting high-pressure gas is then used to power turbines to produce electricity.
The gas is then discharged safely back into the atmosphere.
The system's especially smart features are its energy-saving characteristics. Heat produced during the compression is retained and utilized to facilitate the evaporation of the liquid air in the future.
Cetegen says that in the absence of these thermal recovery cycles, the efficiency is near 50, but with this implemented, the efficiency can be over 60, even nearly 70.
The liquid air plant aims to compete with existing storage technologies, such as pumped hydro, which already commands 160 gigawatts of capacity worldwide, and the lithium battery industry, which stood at 80 80 gigawatts in 2013 but is expected to grow to 80 GW80GW by 2023.
Developer Highview Power hopes that the benefits of liquid air, such as longer-duration storage and the use of non-toxic, non-scarce materials, will make it a vital part of the future energy mix.
Although the technology has encountered cost issues at the current stage, scientists think that as renewable energy storage requirements become more complicated, liquid air will have its niche.
With the world scrambling to decarbonize, this long-overlooked technology is almost ready to have its day in the sun by providing an alternative way to have clean power just when we need it the most.