Assessment of Expansion Cooling as an Auxiliary Process With Compressed Air Energy Storage Systems

With rapid development and diversity in the energy resources, the need for energy storage system keeps growing to balance the demand-supply cycles. Solar photovoltaic energy has reached high efficiency levels and continuously dropping cost per kWh and is currently able to support the grid. The usual route for energy storage from solar photovoltaics is electrochemical storage systems in batteries. Current systems require extensive heat management to operate at specific temperatures range, and state of charge. Mechanical energy storage systems are a formidable alternative, with compressed air storage systems offering an operational flexibility covering wider range of temperature and state of charge. Main losses in this system are mechanical and thermal losses. This work focuses on the possibility of benefiting from the low temperatures during the decompression part of the cycle to provide chilled water for cooling applications. An experimental system is built and tested to assess the cooling potential of stored water for chilling applications.