Project description
Balancing the grid and cooling refrigerated warehouses: efficient cryogenic energy storage
Thermal energy storage has received a lot of recent attention enabling harvesting of waste heat and its use either to produce electricity or to meet heating needs. Cryogenic energy storage (CES), the utilisation of cryogenic (ultra low-temperature) liquids to store energy, is also gaining attention. It can help balance a power grid increasingly dependent on renewable energy sources (RES), while also meeting the cooling demands of, for example, refrigerated food warehouses. Until now, however, its use has been limited due to low efficiency. The EU-funded CryoHub project aims to maximise CES efficiency with air as the cryogen, solving existing challenges, and paving the way to broader adoption of CES-based technologies.
Objective
The CryoHub innovation project will investigate and extend the potential of large-scale Cryogenic Energy Storage (CES) and will apply the stored energy for both cooling and energy generation. By employing Renewable Energy Sources (RES) to liquefy and store cryogens, CryoHub will balance the power grid, while meeting the cooling demand of a refrigerated food warehouse and recovering the waste heat from its equipment and components.
The intermittent supply is a major obstacle to the RES power market. In reality, RES are fickle forces, prone to over-producing when demand is low and failing to meet requirements when demand peaks. Europe is about to generate 20% of its required energy from RES by 2020, so that the proper RES integration poses continent-wide challenges.
The Cryogenic Energy Storage (CES), and particularly the Liquid Air Energy Storage (LAES), is a promising technology enabling on-site storage of RES energy during periods of high generation and its use at peak grid demand. Thus, CES acts as Grid Energy Storage (GES), where cryogen is boiled to drive a turbine and to restore electricity to the grid. To date, CES applications have been rather limited by the poor round trip efficiency (ratio between energies spent for and retrieved from energy storage) due to unrecovered energy losses.
The CryoHub project is therefore designed to maximise the CES efficiency by recovering energy from cooling and heating in a perfect RES-driven cycle of cryogen liquefaction, storage, distribution and efficient use. Refrigerated warehouses for chilled and frozen food commodities are large electricity consumers, possess powerful installed capacities for cooling and heating and waste substantial amounts of heat. Such facilities provide the ideal industrial environment to advance and demonstrate the LAES benefits.
CryoHub will thus resolve most of the above-mentioned problems at one go, thereby paving the way for broader market prospects for CES-based technologies across Europe.
Fields of science
- engineering and technologyenvironmental engineeringenergy and fuelsrenewable energy
- engineering and technologymechanical engineeringthermodynamic engineering
- natural sciencescomputer and information sciencessoftwaresoftware applicationssystem software
- social scienceseconomics and businessbusiness and managementbusiness models
- engineering and technologyelectrical engineering, electronic engineering, information engineeringelectrical engineeringpower engineeringelectric power transmission
Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
IA - Innovation actionCoordinator
SE10AA London
United Kingdom
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Participants (18)
4190 FERRIERES
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The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.
75007 Paris
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31621 Sarriguren
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MK43 0AL Cranfield - Bedfordshire
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75007 Paris
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1000 Sofia
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GU14 0LX FARNBOROUGH
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The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.
TQ5 9UD BRIXHAM
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The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.
Participation ended
1930 ZAVENTEM
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75017 Paris
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Participation ended
1930 Zaventem
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1050 Bruxelles / Brussel
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B15 2TT Birmingham
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SM5 2JR CARSLHALTON
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The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.
3920 LOMMEL
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39-300 MIELEC
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Legal entity other than a subcontractor which is affiliated or legally linked to a participant. The entity carries out work under the conditions laid down in the Grant Agreement, supplies goods or provides services for the action, but did not sign the Grant Agreement. A third party abides by the rules applicable to its related participant under the Grant Agreement with regard to eligibility of costs and control of expenditure.
B797RB TAMWORTH
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Legal entity other than a subcontractor which is affiliated or legally linked to a participant. The entity carries out work under the conditions laid down in the Grant Agreement, supplies goods or provides services for the action, but did not sign the Grant Agreement. A third party abides by the rules applicable to its related participant under the Grant Agreement with regard to eligibility of costs and control of expenditure.
9050 GENTBRUGGE
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