Utility Scale Compressed Air Energy Storage and Clean Power Using Waste Heat From Thermal Power Plants Plus Added Protection for Nuclear Power Plants

An engineering design is provided for a hybrid power plant called new compressed air power (NCAP). The NCAP design utilizes the enormous amount of waste heat from existing thermal power plants to replace polluting natural gas now used in existing compressed air energy storage (CAES) called turbo expanders. Stored compressed air is expanded to provide a heat sink that absorbs the low-temperature waste heat that steam plant designers have long believed could not produce more useful power. The waste heat is then converted to mechanical work in a low-temperature multi-stage air turbine. The design can create the thousands of utility-scale, non-polluting renewable energy storage, and power generation facilities the world needs. The NCAP design can increase the power output of its companion thermal plant by up to 100% during peak demand times with no additional CO
₂
generation. This allows the shutdown of other thermal plants. NCAP plants can be assembled quickly around the world with existing infrastructure.