Scholarly record

REPLACEMENT POSSIBILITIES OF THE HEAVY OVERLOAD PISTON OF GRAVITY HYDRO-POWER-TOWER ENERGY STORAGE PLANTS USING COMPRESSED AIR

Ioan David

Abstract

In the era of the increasingly implementation of renewable energy sources in the electrical energy supply, the expansion of a sustainable energy industry must be promoted the resulting increase in storage requirements. The Gravity Hydro Power Tower Energy Storage (GHPTES) is an innovative hydraulic energy storage system based on pumped storage technology. It consists of a vertical cylindrical cavity, filled with water, in which moves an overload piston from steel at smaller storage systems or from rock at large storage systems. To produce energy the overload piston drops in cavity tower and forces water down in the cavity. The water is returned in the space above the piston through a pipe in which a turbine - motor/generator produce electricity. To store energy, external grid power drives the motor/generator- pump, force water to return through pipe into the cavity, below the piston, lifting the overload piston and thereby storing potential energy. Important advantages of (GHPTES) include: modularity, use of existing technologies, environmental compatibility, flexible siting, rapid construction, relative low cost per kwh, long lifetime and high efficiency. It can help also wind farms and solar farms autonomously store their electricity. Besides the many advantages an important disadvantage of (GHPTES) is the too cost-intensive overload piston made of heavy material (e.g., steel with density of approximately 7.8 t / m?) and thereby a great construction complexity which can leads to restriction of application the power towers energy storage. The present study analyses the elimination possibilities of the heavy overload piston using compressed air. The proposed system in which the heavy overload piston is complete eliminated is a Compressed-Air- Hydro-Power-Tower Energy Storage System (CAHPTES) or simply Hydropneumatics Energy Storage system (HPES). A comparative operating scheme as well as comparative calculations method, among others for energy storage for the two systems are presented. It will be shown that the proposed compressed air-based energy storage system (CAHPTES), even at ordinary air pressure of some bar (e.g. 3-7 bar) can eliminate several tones of heave overload weight material (e.g. 30-700 tone steel) maintaining the same energy storage as the (GHPTES).

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DOI resolver: doi.org/10.5593/sgem2018/4.1/s17.078

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