Energy storage in the future depends on air?He made the strongest "air charging treasure" in history and got international attention

As soon as the goal of "carbon -to -peak carbon and carbon" is achieved, can it be achieved? How to reach? How much efficiency can related technologies bring to this overall goal? At one time, it became the focus of attention.

At the beginning of this year, NATURE previously titled "China Zero Carbon Ambition -Four Scientific Research Teams to help China Achieve Zero Carbon Energy Objectives" article, which carefully sorted out the current energy storage and energy predictions in my country, energy predictions, energy predictions, energy predictions, energy predictions, energy prediction, A series of progress in the fields of offshore wind energy. One of the "air energy storage" made enough attention.

Nature related articles report

Making the air into a "charging treasure", this technology was studied by Chen Haisheng, deputy director of the Institute of Engineering Thermal Physics, Institute of Engineering of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. This road, they walked for 18 years.

Make the air into a "charging treasure",

Is it really possible?

It sounds "outrageous" to make the air into a "charging treasure", but it is indeed a new energy technology of the eight classics -scientific name: compressed air storage.

Its basic principle is well understood, that is, when using the electric trough, the air is compressed to high -voltage air through the compressor. When the power consumption is used, these high -voltage air will be released to drive the expansion generator to generate electricity. In 1943, the United States applied for the first modern compressed air energy storage patent.

The world's first compressed air storage technology patent

The world's first commercial operation modern compressed air storage power station was built in Germany in 1978. This compressed air -storage power station called Huntorf will store air compressing the air storage cave through the compressor when using the compressor. At the peak of electricity, while releasing high -voltage air, it uses fuel to manufacture high -voltage and high temperature environments. Drive the expansion generator.

Although Huntorf is running very stable now, it still has great limitations. For example, its construction is highly dependent on geographical conditions; for example, its power generation process inevitably needs to use fossil fuel, and the overall efficiency is relatively low.

It is realized that compressing air storage has always been one of the difficult problems for research teams in the world.

The research team of Chen Haisheng is one of the elements.

Chen Haisheng

18 years, a road

In 2004, Chen Haisheng decided to use the energy storage energy as the main direction of his future.

But his decision attracted the worries of the old seniors -the domestic field was basically blank at the time in China. They reminded it more than once: "Haisheng, you think about it, is this research direction right?"

However, Chen Haisheng is extremely firm in his choice. He feels that from the perspective of the development trend of the entire energy field, renewable energy will be one of the main trends in the future, and compressing air storage energy will be one of the technology. There are great development needs.

Compared with new and old technology comparison of air storage of air

After determining the direction of the main attack, Chen Haisheng focused on the research on the "upgrade and transformation" of traditional compressed air storage technology.

He and team analysis found that the limitations of traditional technologies are mainly concentrated in three aspects -one is that the compression heat generated by air in the process of compression is not recovered; the second is that the energy storage density of air is relatively low; the third is the overall device. The compression and expansion systems are independent of each other, resulting in low overall efficiency.

In response to these three issues, they creatively transformed the original device, and got rid of the previous dependence on the compressed heat through compressing the heat; the design pressure vessel gas storage device was used Optimize the compressed expansion structure of the device to improve the overall efficiency.

In 2010, Chen Haisheng and the team members built a 1 kW compressed air energy storage system covering an area of ​​only 15 square meters in Zhongguancun, which used it to verify their overall ideas;

1 kilowatt compressed air energy storage system

In 2011, they built a 15 -kilowatt compressed air energy storage system covering an area of ​​about 70 square meters in Zhongguancun, which used it to conduct in -depth basic research and design verification;

In 2013, they built the first international 1.5 MW advanced compressed air storage demonstration project in Langfang, Hebei. The overall area covers an area of ​​400 square meters and the system efficiency can reach 52.1%.

In 2016, in Bijie, Guizhou, a international first 10 MW advanced compressed air storage energy demonstration system with an area of ​​about 1,500 square meters was completed, the system efficiency increased to 60.2%, and it had run smoothly for more than 4,000 hours;

100 MW advanced compressed air storage energy demonstration system

In 2021, the first set of 100 MW's advanced compressed air storage system for Zhangjiakou, Hebei, marked that Chen Haisheng and his team pushed our compressed air energy storage technology and pushed it to a new "magnitude".

Compared with the original 10 MW technology, the overall efficiency of this new system will increase by 10%, while the cost decreases by 30%. Its performance indicators far exceed the same size compressed air storage system of the same scale.

The performance contrast of the same scale compressed air storage system (pictured

The hardship behind these achievements is clear than anyone else.

Take the demonstration project of Zhangjiakou, Hebei -at that time, the construction period of the demonstration project was set in winter. The minimum temperature in the Zhangjiakou area can reach minus 25 degrees, because the local wind is large, and the human body feel can reach minus 40 degrees.

Construction in such an environment can be imagined.

However, more than 20 people in the entire team have been sticking to the front line until the demonstration project was successfully connected before they ended the "travel task".At present, six compressed air storage energy demonstration projects have been built in China, and more than 20 sets of construction and planning are under construction and planning.

Chen Haisheng said that in the future, they have to do 3 things well: "the promotion and application of existing technology; second, a larger system development, such as 300 MW systems; the third is to continuously develop new compressed air energy storage technology, Continuously improving efficiency and other performance. "This is their dream and their mission.

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